


mauerbauertraurigkeit

by WonderAss



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A Dollop Of, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Canon, Anal Sex, Background Case, Body Horror, Case Fic, Character Study, Dirty Talk, Erotic Horror, Erotic Violence, Facials, Intimate Wireplay, Introspection, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Paranoia, Plot With Porn, Porn Addiction, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Psychological Horror, Public Sex, References to Canon, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Loathing, Sexual Tension, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Smut, Surreal Smut, Suspense, Transformation, Uncanny Valley, Unreliable Narrator, Voyeurism, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, Wet Dream, With Sprinkles Of:, Worldbuilding, Yandere, also see:, android gore, developing kink, horror porn, then..., wireplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:17:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 38,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderAss/pseuds/WonderAss
Summary: The Connor from CyberLife Tower has been accepted as a member of the Detroit Police Department. No longer a threat to public safety, he's now considered one of the best additions to Detroit's rapidfire change in light of Markus's revolution-then-disappearance. Hank has seen double enough times not to believe the illusion.The Dollmaker is still on the loose: a criminal that switches androids' body parts and dumps them around the city, considered a lesser issue for humans and a walking nightmare for androids. It's only when members of the precinct start turning up dead that CyberLife's newest prototype gets involved.The answer is somewhere between the lines...but it's him who remains the biggest obstacle.a standalone fic that can also be read as a sequel to 'cumulonimbus'





	1. chemtrail

**Song Inspirations:** "Waiting Game" by BANKS + "Darkest Hour" by Lyves

\--

"Can you hear me?"

Sometimes he falls off the ball. It happens. It's just not usually so goddamn _literal_.

It'd been another somber, quiet night on the couch, last he remembered, and he'd been watching something or another on cable. The ceiling swimming above his head disa- _fucking_ -grees. Not sure _why_ it's arguing so hard, when it'd just been one bottle, but whatever. Right now balls of throbbing agony keep ricocheting off the cavern of his skull in a schoolyard game from Hell and his tongue has never tasted worse. Trying to roll over to his right feels like shit. Trying to sit up feels like shit. Trying to breathe feels like shit. He holds his head and digs nails into his scalp for any kind of pain that's manageable.

Nope. He can't even pretend this is working. God, a pick-up truck filled with a lifetime of free therapy wouldn't come _close_ to measuing up to just one tall, cold-

"Glass of water." Hank croaks. " _Please_."

Fuck and Christ, now his head's going from balls-to-the-wall to being filled with hornets squeezing _airhorns_. If he so much as blinks too hard it's going to turn into full-on ringing. Something shivers along the carpet, footsteps too deliberate to be his fat dog or a stranger picking the perfect day to rob him blind. Hank rubs his temples furiously in another attempt to crank down the meter and starts counting. One, two, three, _fuck_ it. This is a great day to die. A hand takes his shoulder, squeezes and shakes. Something cold and slippery touches his wrist. Oh, _there_ it is. Cool as a crisp spring morning. He knows if he chugs the stars will swing him right back, so he sips as fast as he can, little laps like he's the fucking slobber hound of the house.

Speaking of which...

"Don't worry. Sumo's out in the yard right now. I walked him, fed him and trimmed his fur for you."

Phew. Good, that's good. Dog's older than a Cadillac, but that didn't mean he could skimp out on fresh air. Wait, trimmed his...fur? A grunt is a decent enough question, because Connor answers it before it's had time to turn into a sour belch.

"Poor thing had a _nasty_ series of mats along his lower stomach and rump. Enough to suggest a few missed trips to the veterinarian, perhaps?"

Hank winces. Not just from the implication that he's a neglectful piece of crap. The buzzing's starting to go down, replaced with that snap-crackle-pop where he _really_ can't hear shit.

"Neglecting your health is one thing, and a regrettable _thing_ , of course, but many domesticated animals lack the frame of mind required for ideal maintenance. Interesting how their custom design has made them so flawed in this regard. Fortunately, all you have to do is ask, Hank, and I can ensure you're always up-to-speed."

Phew, the guy's going in harder than usual. He deserves it, though. He deserves a _lot_ of shit, really. First they bond over his near-death experience on the kitchen floor, now this ridiculous bullshit in the living room? Hallway. Bedroom. He's...not actually all _that_ acquainted with which square of carpet he's ended up on. Hank licks the last drop from the cup and sighs a cold (and still smelly) breath. This guy is too fucking good for him. Well, while he's waiting for his body to fall in step with reality he might as well think of all the ways he can thank him properly, since more traditional gestures of gratitude are off the table. Though Connor would probably be fine going to a four-star restaurant, anyway, just to humor him.

It's a vivid picture -- Connor sitting in a three-piece suit holding a fork and knife he won't use, as rosy-cheeked as a model in a Norman Rockwell painting -- and Hank tries not to laugh-vomit all over the floor.

"It's good to see you smile. Come on, then. Let's get you somewhere more comfortable."

Just like that bad night-turned-shitshow he's tugged into a sitting position, one arm slung over slim-yet-broad shoulders. Hank's gut churns with fondness and more than a little nausea. Blech. Now's the opposite time for a kiss. Connor smells amazing, though, as much as an android smells like _anything_ outside of how dry-cleaned their clothes are and where they've been in the immediate last hour. Even for a machine he's always so... _clean_. Fuck, whatever. Hank pushes his nose up against his neck -- vaguely registering what feels like a pen or a pencil poking at his stomach -- and gets a good, proper sniff to swap out the mess in his airways. Make that mark two or seven on his 'Outdoing The Resident Slobberdog'.

...Yep. Dry-clean.

"Here we go. One step at a time."

Then he just...gets wrapped up in the silky _smoothness_ of his skin. So warm, not at _all_ how he thought androids would feel back in the day. Connor's soft chuckle could be put into a pill and sold as a painkiller.

"If _that's_ the kind of comfortable you want, all you have to do is ask."

Yeah, he knows. It's what gets him sitting up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, actually. That _this_ could be a thing, with a little more of that _asking_ , and there wouldn't be any strings attached. Thankfully those thoughts are ground to a screeching halt when a chair seat bumps into the back of his knees. Hank slumps down and leans over the table (ah, so he passed out next to the kitchen), slowly figuring out the shapes in-between the blurry spots. The android takes his empty cup (somehow still clutched in his fist) and goes to wash it, tugging off a rag from the stand to scrub it in, out and around. Then he wrings it out and loops the cloth over one shoulder.

"...You look like a fucking dishwasher, Connor." Hank chuckles, because it's yet another funny image he should at least _mention_ , and rubs a finger in his eyes. "Or a, uh. Guy that washes dishes. God, English is a dumb language. Bus boy, maybe."

Connor glances at him, mouth curled halfway to a smile and one sleek eyebrow arched high. He's wearing a _killer_ pair of pants today. Snug as hell. A dark, glossy button-up, too, which is interesting. He's often in work casual _or_ carting around one of his shitty hoodies (which he certainly wasn't complaining about). A completely black and white fashion sense, metaphorically, nothing so...chic. Hank rubs at his other eye, flicks residue into the air and blinks again. ...Huh. Connor with a dishrag on his...shoulder. A pair of jeans he's never seen him in before, a shirt he's never seen him in before. A knowing glint in his eye...

...that's different, too.

"...Connor?"

"Funny you should mention that. I'd considered a public service job before being accepted to the Department, actually. It'd be a great opportunity to learn more about humans and the minute detail clusters of day-to-day life. The precinct's sterile environments don't do much besides reinforce my programming." The rag is tugged off and slung over the stand again. A bump of the shoulder clicks the cupboard door shut. "At least I got to put my pet care program to good use today. It was practically collecting digital _dust_."

Hank slowly sits up...and stares. The android that looks like Connor and sounds like Connor puts on a helpless shrug from where he now leans on the very edge of his kitchen counter. He stretches out his long legs, right heel balancing delicately on the toe of the left foot in a picture too cute for the panic bumps bouncing up his skin. There's a dimple in his cheek, the kind he only got when smiling from ear-to-ear, hair so prim it looks professionally done. A ballpoint pen is in one hand, twirling into a blur. Same one that was poking him in the stomach when he was nuzzling...

"Poor time management." Nolan says, apropos of something he missed in the middle of stringing one detail to the other, and Hank's heart does a death-defying leap from his throat to the pit of his stomach. "It's a plague of modern society. I could help you keep track there, too, you know. My internal clock is modeled after the latest GPS satellite and is accurate to the nearest forty nanoseconds, give or take a few atmospheric disruptions or acute internal damage. Though, of course..." The pen flips into the air, caught without so much as a shift in his posture, and goes back to spinning. "...the right tools don't a good habit make."

Jesus _fucking_ Christ. Hank shoves the chair back and jumps to his feet, mind trying its hardest to backtrack the last fifteen minutes and instead tumbling over like...well, a fucking _drunk_. The headrush nearly sends him right back into the floor, damn it all, and he has to slap a hand on the wall to at least slow the crash. ...A very silky, firm, warm wall. Before he can protest two slim-yet-strong arms encircle him like he's not an out-of-shape motherfucker and tug him back up. He looks into Nolan's concerned frown with a scowl that probably comes off more cross-eyed than intimidating.

"Careful there, Hank." The android says, clicking his tongue. "You've exceeded your daily limit by nearly-"

" _Lieutenant Anderson_." Hank snaps, shoving him back with one hand and groping for the table edge with the other. "And I know how much I drank, I was there."

If he hadn't been seeing stars -- back for round two, now -- he would've pieced together much sooner the ballpoint pen sticking out of the guy's pants pocket like the city's most fashionable nerd. That little old-timey relic that's gone out of favor with the invention of holo-vids Hank barely even touches anymore, let alone uses. Now Nolan's beloved fidget toy and virtually inseparable. Did the bastard know he had no idea he wasn't Connor? What the _fuck_ has been going through his head this entire time? Shit, it's not like he didn't have daily suspicions about _that_ question of the month. Suspicions he was usually paid to make.

Hank holds onto his stomach for a second -- there's a visit to the toilet brewing in there -- and points a cold, furious finger.

"How did _you_ get _in_ here."

Nolan blinks twice, perking up like a dog hearing its name. He swiftly reaches into his pocket and tugs out a house key -- with the little LED puppy keychain he got for Connor last month -- and twirls it around one finger, dimpling that same smile. Forget bus boy. He looks like he just got done delivering a carton of milk to a mother's doorstep in the 50's.

"Oh, Connor asked me to help in his stead. The deficit has slowed down just about _everything_ and he's had to stay on the field longer than usual taking records." He makes as if to toss the keys his way, then seems to think better of it and sets it down on the counter. "Poor time management. Affects us all, right?"

"No kidding." Hank is about to go flush some of _his_ time management straight down the toilet. "Help with...what, exactly?"

"Why, you called him, Lieutenant." The pitch of his voice is almost the same. _Almost_ there, like slipping-yet-not-falling up a flight of stairs. "Said a few rather colorful things not two hours ago that alerted him to either a hangover or a possible stomach pumping session."

...Ah. He doesn't remember that at all. It's not even easy to be embarrassed, with Nolan watching him like he really doesn't have anywhere better to be. Hank swallows back some bile and nods slow enough not to rattle his brain further.

"I can provide a recording-"

"No. Okay. You... _been_ here that entire time, then?"

"Oh, no." Hank's shoulders sag with relief...then go right back to stiff when the bastard keeps talking. "I've been here for an hour and a half. Looking after Sumo, reducing your probability for indoor air pollution, keeping an eye on your status-"

"Well, I'm _fine_ now." Hank grits. He'll have time to think about the guy creeping in his underwear drawer or hacking into his computer later. "Thanks. Go manage your time somewhere else."

It's not that easy, because of _course_ it's not. Nolan disobeys right on command, strolling over with another dimpled smile to lean a hand on the table, the other loose in his pants pocket. His apologetic tone makes him want to pick up the chair one-handed and send it at his perfect head.

"Ah. I'm afraid that's a lesser option, considering the circumstances. I was expressly told _not_ to leave you unattended as long as you were less than your best. I may not be able to imbibe, but my programs on human health are updated several times per day from reliable sources." The smile widens. "Far from your best."

He could snap at him, again. Yelling was one of his talents. But this specific anger -- this thin, itchy glass under his skin ready to break -- isn't the kind for raising his voice. The android's next words trail off as Hank leans in, nice and slow, and curls his lips into a dark sneer.

"And what'll you do if I say _no?_ " He drops his voice low enough to get even those circuits flickering with unease. "...Huh?"

Nolan doesn't move back, or hold his hands up, but that tidy smile finally fades from his face and dies a solid death. His eyes flit back and forth, reading his expression carefully. Downloading it into graphs and numbers, no doubt. Hank might be imagining it -- with his shitty vision right now -- but his LED flickers.

"...Nothing, Lieutenant Anderson."

"...Uh-huh. Good answer." Hank skips the sarcastic clap on his shoulder and pushes off the table, walking the straightest line he can manage over to the sink. "I'm not hungover...yet...and I'm _clearly_ not needing my stomach pumped, yet. Send Connor an IM that the danger's over and see yourself out, if you'd be so fucking kind."

He watches Nolan leave in the reflection of the fridge. The android doesn't double-check over his shoulder like Connor, looking for something or another to tidy up at the last second, and he doesn't wipe his shoes off on the mat, despite going outside. No. He's _nothing_ like him, when it comes down to it. When the door clicks shut the relief is enough to break him out into a sweat. He'll have to take a look at the dog later and make sure he's hygenic enough to be considered healthy. Might need to lay off alcohol for a few days, too.

First things first. Hank fists back his hair, leans into the sink and throws up.

\--

"I can't be in three places at once, though my model could _certainly_ have the capacity in the near future. Equipment that can keep up to par means nobody falls behind, human or android. The deficit is only getting larger from here. Tina is about ready to fall asleep standing up."

Same height. Same build. Same supermodel-on-a-magazine-cover-pretending-to-be-an-everyday-schmuck hairstyle. Same deep-yet-soft voice, usually the beginning _and_ end of a good wet dream. Shit, they even had the same _dimple_. A tiny dip right in the meat of their right cheek, big as a pinky nail when grinning and goddamn adorable. ...Usually.

"Fascinating how not three decades ago humans had to rely on genetic tests that took days to process. Trace evidence analysis was once among the most time consuming element of reconstructing a crime scene, though I doubt I have to go at length about _those_ little details. You've wandered this earth fifty-three times longer than I have."

Androids walking and talking and eventually nudging humans off the top of the social pyramid he can take (not like he'd have a choice, or want one, anyway). It's the _clone_ aspect that skeeves him out. Sure, twins and triplets still made headlines, even in a world where test tube babies were on the market for rich bastards, but it was nonetheless a rare thing to run into. If it were possible to overdose on deja vu, this'd be the way to do it. He all but _gorges_ on the stuff running into an AX400 fourteen times in one day or seeing three PL600s in the same store, debating out loud so the nearby humans don't get creeped out. It's not fair to them, of course. Androids didn't _ask_ to be mass manufactured.

He still hates it.

"Sure, funds may be tight with the Department's rework, but this would be a _wise_ use of the investment. Androids remain unique with our short-term needs of thirium and electricity. Extending our natural abilities, so to speak, of rapid compartmentalization to human workers is reducing the probability of a productivity halt by a significant margin. Ah, not that I don't put plenty of effort toward remaining functional and effective at all times." A pause and glimmer of light. "In fact, I have a chart here with a theoretical scenario spanning the next six months, with employee retention rates averaged out."

It's not just him. Humans haven't had a lot of time to adjust, plainly speaking. They were still figuring out how to and how _not_ to categorize other humans, which means androids didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell after waking up (in what _might_ have been a planned coup from the get-go, no less). He had even less time. Less time to make sense of the android partner he was ready to hate and didn't. What feels like _no_ time between his partner's corrupted clone getting the jump on him _and_ the surprise visit on his doorstep weeks later that still leers in his headspace. Not-Connor's front splattered with red and blue, purring his name like he's the only person in the world-

"...Hank?"

Hank recovers from the reverie with little grace. Nolan's smile spreads wide. Just enough to show a peek at those same straight, white teeth.

"...I'm boring you." He bobs one narrow shoulder woefully, still holding up both hands with a detailed digital spreadsheet _just_ transparent enough to show the buttons on his black workshirt. "Forensic toxicology, unfortunately, doesn't lend itself to many topical shorthands, even across interconnected departments."

Tch. If only. Being bored would at least give him a sense of direction. A place to drive to, a person to talk to, a schedule to put on hold so he can jerk off and feel guilty about it later. This isn't nearly so straightforward. When is it _ever_ , really. Hank puts on a smile, or something of the sort, and surrenders his slouch.

"...Nah. Just tired."

Same cute little tilt of the head, same dark brown eyes...flicking up and down with a knowing look a shade too polite to be straight-up disagreement.

"Well. You should rest, then. I can see to the rest of the matter myself, provided Fowler is in a talkative mood." He tilts his head back in place and raises his eyebrows. That fucking deja vu. "A twenty to twenty-five minute nap should be enough to help you concentrate over the next three hours."

Uh-uh. He knows where this is going. Hank turns back around to the Department-issued file on equipment changes he's been barely reading through his headache.

"Rest when I'm dead." He grunts, swiping at the screen with two fingers. Nolan leans in a little. Not enough to touch, but still way, _way_ too close.

"Hank-"

" _Lieutenant Anderson_." He snaps. The android's mouth shuts faster than an old-school mousetrap.

Chris glances at them as he walks by, box of donuts in one hand and a maple bar in his mouth. Hank realizes his own volume far too late and barely suppresses a wince. It just sounds too much like how Connor says it, and that fucks with his _head_. A glance up at Nolan's face and his heart pings stupidly at the look in his eyes. Glass and plastic shouldn't have the ability to showcase a subtlety like... _that_. It's a pissy little thing to think, what with the irrefutable evidence androids were truly intelligent, feeling beings, and that just serves to make today's mood a thousand times worse.

"...I'm sorry." Nolan slowly smiles and straightens back up. He lowers his hands, hologram blinking into nothing. "Lieutenant Anderson."

Hank shakes his head and pretends to be greatly invested in his console. He doesn't hear the android leave, but the prickle to his skin goes down and that's clue enough for him to breathe correctly again. Chris sidles at his desk behind him with a familiar _squeak_. The box pops open, sending the smell of sugar and cheap fruit filling into the air.

He should be used to this by now. He doesn't _want_ to be.

All these little thoughtful gestures during the morning shift, prods about his health, the significant _looks_ , it's driving him _crazy_. It's been one little thing after another, week after week after _week_ , and that was the nicest way Hank could snap at him and establish yet another boundary. It's just...it's all too uncanny. Out-of-place, with that way the android watches him in any given room; nothing like a classic stalker from slasher films, but like he thinks he's the most handsome stranger he's had the luck of running into during the weekday commute.

_"Good morning. As good as it can be in the spring-winter limbo, anyway. My biocomponents are still warming up."_

Said with a charming little smirk that softens his (same, beautiful, familiar) mouth, like they're the best of co-workers and he _hadn't_ been a government drone holding him at the business end of a gun barrel on a CyberLife Tower floor not three months back.

_"I just saw Chilly Evenings. Completely fascinating production design. Have you seen the trailer?"_

Nolan could sidle into someone else's conversation and settle in like he'd been there from the jump. Hank had nodded and excused himself to the bathroom that (blissfully) boring Wednesday afternoon, a conversation that once annoyed the shit out of him following at his back in yet more deja _fucking_ vu.

_"Denton Carter scored 53% of his shots from the three-point line yesterday. Did you see the game?"_

Then there was that traditional machinal hypercompetence, appearing at his desk before he's even realized his mug's out of coffee or he forgot to grab his phone charger from the lunch room. Hypercompetence that clashes so _strangely_ with the photo-vivid memory of his whispering-then-screaming meltdown after finding out Hank _wasn't_ his long-lost human lover. Hank shivers, so suddenly he nearly drops his holo-sheet. If anyone was going to give Connor's virtual hand-holding a run for its money, it'd be the guy that walked and squawked almost exactly like him. Almost.

 _Almost_.

"Oh, Fowler?" He hears Nolan call as he walks up to the man, freshly returned with his usual cold brew. "I wanted to share with you my thoughts..."

"Right, right. Close the door behind you."

Hank sighs and drops the sheet to his desk, slumping back in his chair and doing a premature spin. He needs a few minutes away from it all. Chris is stuffing the rest of the bar into his mouth, like sugar's the only thing keeping him tethered to this reality. He slides over to him and holds out the box.

"Need a pick-me-up?"

"Sure. Got chocolate?"

The dastardly duo. Two Great Tastes. Connor and Nolan.

It's been an... _interesting_ few months.

They weren't enemies anymore, he's very glad to say, but they weren't _quite_ friends, either. Made the way they synced up all the more uncanny. Sometimes the androids would end up doing the same goddamn thing at the same goddamn time in an attempt to...fuck, be _weird?_ First time it was surprising. Second time, admittedly kind of funny. It was probably the third (or fourth) time he swiveled around in his chair to find _two_ mugs of coffee held his way it veered straight off the deep end into Creepy Lake. It's not a fun line of thought, wondering if they accidentally lined up all the time because they shared the same 'base personality'. Many of the same memories. Mannerisms. Habits.

No...not very fun at all.

"I need to cut back." Chris sighs as he shuffles a hand around for another. "Why can't I stress eat celery?"

"Because it tastes like shit." Hank snorts, snatching the sprinkled one from his fingers before he can take a bite. "Thanks."

He still hadn't thanked Nolan for checking on him at the house (or taking care of Sumo, which was a bigger deal), but just _that_ act feels like tempting fate. It's a rare day when thoughtfulness _doesn't_ have a string or five attached. He learned that young. Still. It was...nice of him. Guy would be the perfect housewife fantasy... _if_ Hank could make like a CyberLife re-programmer and pretend that night never happened. It still makes him wonder, what...leftover memories were still banging around in that advanced head of his. What did he remember, or _think_ he was remembering, about Hank that he wasn't up for sharing?

Things Hank wishes he never said? Private moments that _should've_ been between him and Connor, now up for grabs by someone who looks sane, sounds sane and could very well be something else entirely? ...Cole?

"Hey! Good to see you, Connor."

"Good morning, Chris. How's Damian doing?"

"Eh. Doing better. Changing the crib sheets helped a lot, I wanted to thank you for that. Baby skin is so much more sensitive than I gave it credit for."

Brown eyes and a soft smile show up in his peripheral vision, and Hank _loathes_ that the sight makes him prickle now instead of relaxing.

"Brought you something." Connor says, settling in across from him and swinging one long leg over the other. Hank huffs to cover up the automatic discomfort, though it won't be fast enough for his favorite person. He knows that all too well now.

"A letter confirming the end of the world as we know it? Oh, you shouldn't have."

"Three sheets for you to review and sign, unfortunately." Connor smiles and slides the holo-pad over to him, reaching over to give his shoulder a squeeze. "But I _did_ bring snacks." A tilt of the head and a flicker of blue in his temple as he observes what's in Hank's hand. "...Ones less likely to promote weight gain that increases the possibility of type 2 diabetes."

Hank laughs. He _never_ forgot to feed his human. Digging into the hot gyro it finally settles in that he's probably the only one at the Department that isn't viewing Nolan's extra boost of eager hyperproductivity a sending from God. It's just like when Connor first showed up and rattled the Department with his prototype snowflake shit. Was this just a thing RK800s did? Shaking up a foundation with a light-up future blazer and puppy eyes? Heh, maybe. If there was supposed to be more than one walking around. There wasn't, though. Wasn't supposed to be, from day one, and there _is_ , anyway.

_"This wasn't supposed to happen, Hank."_

The meat's delicious -- Connor's gotten way too good at finding the best dine n' dives -- but it's hard to latch onto flavor as his thoughts wander, again.

_"Our line-up was unique among other models for never having more than one walking about, at any given point in time. They were back-up bodies. Never active."_

Hank licks onion juice off his fingers and stares at nothing. A lot of good things that weren't supposed to happen...a lot of bad things that weren't supposed to happen. He should be used to this truth by now, too.

_"Be gentle, Hank. This could have been me."_

Gavin Reed's body was found in the parking lot of Olivia's All-Day Diner the same night the Connor from CyberLife Tower showed up on his doorstep. It's common knowledge at this point an android did the man in, though _which_ one is about as up in the air as where Markus and his band of brothers ended up to. Serial codes and model types, shockingly enough, didn't _actually_ make finding mechanical culprits easier. Not when they had no fingerprints, could think at the speed of light _and_ alter their appearance at the touch of a button. The deviant hunting business had been a shitshow from the beginning. Two of the digital coppers working amid Detroit's badges has barely put a dent in the new world order.

Connor glances his way. Hank takes a big, hearty bite just in time. It's the perfect spot, really. A detective android couldn't pick a better place to go properly batshit and take out a grudge on humanity, one poor fucker and security flaw at a time.

"Donovan seems to be settling in nicely." Connor small-talks as he charges, coin flipping from one human hand to a shiny white one. "Though it's not easy for him to feel comfortable, still, being one of five androids here."

Hank nods, hoping he doesn't come off too distracted. He does, obviously, because Connor goes quiet again and stares at him in his polite, needling little way.

"Yeah. Right." He won't admit he's had a hard time telling Donovan apart from the three other PC200 models here. He has enough unlikable traits as it is. "Don't blame him."

His intuition has always been his sharpest trait. It pokes at him whenever Nolan's within ten feet or less, when he's brought up in casual conversation. It's just...he knows. He knows, he fucking _knows_ there's a first-person data log somewhere in that 3-D printed skull of Reed's last moments gurgling out rust from seven different holes. Didn't matter how 'scrubbed clean' he was. How 'repaired and ready'. Several experts in android data storage and programming have stated in the past it's an imperfect process patching up the bugs and glitches in artificial intelligence, and a big part of that is how new it all is. New, _new_ , the word of the turn of the century. Making machines that could think and feel was hard enough, but figuring out all the tricky details to keep them sane?

Humans weren't even fucking _sane_. This was a Rubik's Cube's Rubik's Cube. He _would_ wish that impossible task on his worst enemy.

It seems to have done something, though, since Nolan showed up as another candidate to add to the Department without so much as a _smudge_ on his resume. Incredible, due in no small part the RK800 line-up wasn't really a... _thing_. Detroit has thousands of individuals with a few dozen individual faces, but this was something else. Connor had told him his models were all back-up bodies, with one personality shuffled through them in a daisy-brain-chain. After Nolan flipped his lid and killed several humans in a still-grey legal area of self-defense it was stated by one of the plethora of CyberLife affiliates a good idea _not_ to activate any of the others. They didn't go into detail why. Horrible PR, no doubt.

There were always a million and a half details to keep up with in the news circuit, but this one had gotten Hank's undivided attention. The mere thought of a dozen of those fastidious bastards knocking on his door at one in the morning, sighing his name...

"What's the, uh, android equivalent of a sugar rush?" Chris asks, eyeing the donut box again. Connor smiles, charger cable stretched out between his fingertips.

"If I turned it on for three seconds instead of three minutes."

Nolan was also considered too valuable not to use -- valuable _and_ disposable, the contradiction of capitalism -- and, well...androids getting rights only extended as far as society would deem useful. It was all Connor could do just to get the guy out of being tested for the rest of his short _life_. A shiver of pride travels up Hank's chest, a welcome distraction and completely inappropriate, and he knows Connor catches it by the way his eyes crinkle. This man was truly something else. Too nice and too smart for his own good. Human unpredictability remains little more than a game of chess for him: in just two weeks Connor had weaseled his way through legal loopholes and threats just _polite_ enough to get both the Department _and_ Kamski's goons off his double's back.

A rescue operation for the history books. He'll never fully figure out how he pulled that off.

"...Thinking about something happy, Lieutenant?" Connor asks, tugging the charger out and folding it in careful loops.

"Sure am." Hank chuckles, wiping grease off his hands and holding his gaze. Connor winks.

So the Connor from the CyberLife Tower named himself Nolan, got a full-time gig as his big welcoming party to humanity and apparently got switched back from crazy. Happy ending.

The forensics department _adored_ him since day one. Always going on and on about the cheer he adds to a job that's anything _but_ cheerful, which he can't be the only one finding more unsettling than charming. The android moves back and forth on-site between toxicology, geology and pathology, with Connor swapping in and out between the ground team. Chris likes him well enough and Tina gets along with Connor _and_ Nolan like they're old-time friends, which makes something funny camp out in the pit of Hank's stomach until a distraction comes along. Which it doesn't always, of course, because the universe has long since deemed Hank Anderson as its gourmet chew toy.

He'd never been a fan of Reed. Still fucks him up, that she has no clue. The autopsy report was one even _his_ iron stomach twinged at.

"If you'd like to talk about it later..." Connor says as his hands glow white and hover above his console. "...I'm all ears."

Hank is careful not to meet his eyes. Not when androids bumped nosy parents down to second place in mind-reading. Did reprogramming actually...work? Wiping clean a person's memories to patch them up into an upstanding citizen? How about someone whose memories were never truly _theirs_ in the first-place, with nothing else to fall back on? He knows humans don't work like that. Androids aren't human, though. As far away from one as possible while being _too_ close to humanity for comfort. Really...he shouldn't have expected anything at all.

"Well, it's not alcohol." Hank mutters as he swipes to the last page on the Department's new sweeping foundation. "For once."

It's not as lovey-dovey as it could be, but he hopes it warms up something in Connor, anyway. It doesn't, though. Hank can see the disappointment in the way his chin dips, in the very corner of his eye.

The rest of the day's long, slow and shit. There isn't his usual routine to lean back on until the clock hits that blessed final five minutes mark. Not with the Department foundation rework chugging at a snail's pace. There's no lively chatter in the lunchroom, either (Reed and Tina's favorite hangout in the past) and no muffled rage from Fowler's glass box. The latter he's _too_ used to and can't believe he misses; Nolan is one of the esteemed few that got the bald bastard inching as close as possible to agreeable. Hank sneaks a few glances at his boss's office -- not wanting to seem inviting -- but there's no need. Nolan's entirely focused on his task. Pose casual, yet attentive, spine straight and hands dancing in the air as he works away at his superior with some compelling argument or another.

Connor casually mentions Nolan is fitting the Department like a glove, eyes still on his console although he doesn't need it, and Hank, like usual, feels more alone than he wants to be.

For the rest of the shift. In the car. On the long, cold way home.

All this shit is enough to bother him to the point he sneaks in a stupid little aside after dinner, which is the sort of thing a passive-aggressive single mother does when she's too tired for a direct fight. He's already on round three of hating himself _well_ before the troubled curtain falls over Conner's face and dims his previous cheer. Androids processed everything crazy fast, too, so that hot second is probably fifteen minutes in pithy human metrics. They'd just got done lounging and kissing, too; Connor snug in his lap with his arms around his shoulders, unhurried in a way he wants to do more often. His lips are still tingling from the android's determined nibbling.

Connor remains one of the few reasons he ever bothered to come home in the first place, and he's given _this_ shit as his thanks. Leave it to Hank 'Fucking' Anderson to kill a mood stone cold dead.

"He's..." The stove clicks off like a death knell. "...changing."

Pft. Changing and changed couldn't be more different. Yeah, there it is. That can of worms he shouldn't have peeled open. Hank opens his mouth to tell him it's nothing, _forget it_ , but Connor is already continuing, as smooth and precise as if he were reciting the phonebook.

"I considered interfacing with him to better fill in the gaps between then and now. It's a direct way to view damage _and_ improvement, and would take just a few seconds, but..."

Goddamn _fuck_ his helpless compulsions.

"...But?"

"Well. With how similar our model types are...and the extent of his past corruption..." Connor turns around and hops up to sit on the counter. Not leaning. Not putting a heel on the toe of his shoe. "...it would run the risk of overlayering."

"Overlayering?"

"We might confuse who is who."

Connor gets like this, sometimes. Starts on a creepy topic with the same affect of reading a newspaper over morning coffee. He's likely trying to soften the blow. It skeeves him out, anyway, and he doesn't want to think overmuch about why. If he so much as _inches_ down that rabbit hole of identity crises and near-death experiences he'll think of cradling a blue-stained head in his lap. Then it'll be a trio of limp bodies no longer humming with electricity. Then it'll be a boy who who just graduated the fourth grade and shouldn't have gotten in the car with him that night-

"Well, that's odd. You couldn't be more different." Hank mutters, pushing back his chair to slink over to the couch, laying his head back against the arm rest and staring down a ceiling that was screaming at him not five days ago. Connor's quiet for a few moments, coin an on-again, off-again note in the air.

"...Are you sure?"

Ha. One of the few things he _is_ sure about. Connor is to Nolan what jazz is to rock: both have their perks, but only one was brought home to the parents. He's calm, laid-back, if a little earnest in that 'schoolboy who leaves apples on their teacher's desk' sort of way. Nolan's a classic charmer straight out of the 60's, silver-tongued and _just_ sincere enough about it not to come off as skeevy. The fact so many women felt comfortable being in the same room with him was a big enough point in his favor. _Would_ they, if they _knew_ , well...that's a question he's not crazy about seeing answered.

They may have the same face, but they dressed differently. Held themselves differently. Spoke differently. Only reason he didn't pick up on the obvious last week was because he probably hit his head.

"'Course I am. What could happen, then?" Hank grunts, still trying not to sound too invested. "If you, uh, overlaid or overlayered."

Now that he left the android flicks off the kitchen light. Always trying to conserve on energy. Hank wriggles until he's comfortable and looks over at him again. The LED goes from a circle to an oval; Connor turning his head in his usual thoughtful tic.

"...The same mind in two bodies. We switch bodies. We rewrite each other and both start over, neither new nor the same." A low rustle. Shrugging. "I'm not exactly sure. Calculating the odds solely through theoretical data doesn't replace first-hand knowledge, especially with this act having never been done before."

Right. The RK800 model's unique difference. Hank wishes he could make out his expression right now. All he has is the LED, ebbing a considering yellow in and out of the dark.

"And you...still _want_ to?"

Another rustle.

"Yes. For...comfort, mostly." Connor's voice hitches, not so low he can't catch it. He's not telling him something, but the topic is so out of his league he doesn't even know where to start pressing. "The deaths we went through, the things we did...or, rather, what he gained from me without a say in the matter. It would be good for us, I think...if it were entirely safe to do."

But it's not, because Nolan wasn't and probably _isn't_ , and this can of worms is already threatening to spill everywhere. He still wants to ask about the fine details of reprogramming and how large of a possibility it could be that some things weren't deleted. Ask Connor how he _feels_ about it all, going from entirely unique to almost replicated, right out of the blue. He's not going to. The more questions he asks the fewer answers he gets. Hank tries to think of some way to change the topic without being obvious. His own damn fault, starting it up in the first place-

"Are you afraid of him?"

His skin crawls. Another thing he's sure about.

"No." He says, instantly, and that would've been enough to call him on his bullshit. Connor's an android, though. His LED blinks instead of pulsing, now. Reading him like a directory.

"...Don't pity him, Hank." He hears him hop to his feet and start to wipe down the counter, back-and-forth with motions so smooth they're almost robotic. "It will hurt more than it will help."

\--

"You can change the parts as many times as you want. As long as the central processor and majority of long-term data logs are uncorrupted they remain the same person. That feature should be standard by now, at the _very_ least."

"Consider this. A single memory can change anything. That means human _nor_ android is the same person in the same body, at any given point in time."

Yep. What definitely doesn't creep him out are two near-identical androids having existential Ghost In The Shell-esque conversations out loud right after the day's unpleasant news. They can most definitely keep _that_ shit wireless.

"Well. In any case, Lloyd is most certainly the same android." Nolan sticks his pen behind one ear and tilts his head at the AP700's medical photos. "Just the thirium pump and hands, this time."

Hank resists the urge to reach for his headphones and exacerbate his already impressive tinnitus, instead taking another swig of _another_ cup of coffee. Ugh. It's getting to the point even caffeine is hurting more than helping. His heart feels like an old stereo. His mind isn't much better.

The Dollmaker always gets people talking, whether it's basic sympathies for the latest victim _or_ more six o' clock echo chamber debates: the 'serial killer' that kidnaps androids and swaps their body parts, then switches them off and dumps them somewhere around Detroit. All done without killing them. Not only is it uniquely cruel -- and _fucking_ creepy -- it sends the newest niche of android autonomy into a legal _nightmare_. Victims having to figure out where their parts went and to whom, getting them back with fresh 'ghost' memories attached now that someone else wore their leg or their arm...

The fact it's low on the list of law enforcement's priorities definitely doesn't help matters.

The first victim had been scooped out of the back of a car not two blocks away from his house: an AX400 who had no clue how she got there, nor why her legs belonged to an LM100. The second victim had been somehow even more garish, an AF200 that had another android's eyes and _another_ android's voicebox. There have been more unique crimes in the past few months than the past few decades -- Zlatko was one he wouldn't soon _forget_ \-- but there was a subtlety to this one that got right under his flesh. He'd spoken with that AF200 personally, who didn't even want to give out her name, and learned defunct androids had most, if not all, of their memories and sensory data wiped when they shut down properly.

When the shutdown process was tampered with, or parts were swapped _without_ a shutdown...

" _I can feel him._ " She'd looked like a woman in her late twenties, both mature and youthful. Her voice had been off-key and high-pitched, like a child's. " _When I look at things I see what he did, all ten months and five days and four hours and three minutes. Ghosts hunched after other people, wanting to be them, wanting what they have._ "

Two became three. Then four. Then five. Not a sign of stopping yet. Right now the topic on the lobby television is the usual ricochet: maybe The Dollmaker is actually a group of androids. Maybe it's a lone human with anti-synthetic viewpoints. Maybe it's some new, bizarre fetish that didn't give a fuck about boundaries. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

" _CyberWatch has yet to release a statement. After eleven reported victims in the past three weeks alone many are starting to wonder where CyberLife's priorities lie. Where do androids fall on the scale of autonomy?_ " The news anchor chatters. Human, because of course. " _Though the appointing of an android as co-head of the new branch is considered a sign of promise by many..._ "

"That's not CyberWatch's jurisdiction." Connor notes, thoughtfully. "Not yet, anyway."

"It shouldn't be, really." Nolan adds, glancing then to _him_ , like he really had anything insightful to offer. "Specialization is better than a one-size-fits-all approach. The RK900 was meant to be the penultimate replacement for all android models, until the RK1000 was perfected..."

"...One thing at a time." Hank grunts, rejecting the rabbit hole immediately. "Finding them and kicking their ass. For now that means working backwards and picking up where the trail left off."

...and _not_ fixating on The Dollmaker cropping up in his schedule _after_ Nolan got accepted to the Department.

"Hank..." Connor starts. Hank waves a hand.

"Hold on. I'm thinking."

Androids normally had an automatic log that timestamped whenever a new part was installed. Even _that_ got scrambled and sometimes outright deleted with The Dollmaker. He hates thinking this, but synthetic persons reporting being bludgeoned with tire irons or outright shot was at least straightforward. This...smacks of a human engineer a little _too_ familiar with how artificial intelligence works, though he still isn't ruling out an android being involved. The biggest clue they've got other than an intrinsic knowledge of software is the fucker strikes late at night. Usually on a weekday when people were too busy and tired to pay attention to their surroundings, thank fuck for patterns.

Going after vulnerable populations, in the dark of night and scattering the trail. Nice and classic, that one. It's around the time Hank clocked off and went back home. An hour or two after Connor did, give or take an overtime shift (guy was much crazier about those than he was). Nolan is saying something else now, but the world at large is fading into fuzz and all he can see are the pieces.

"...We'll find them." Hank mutters, more to himself, continuing to stare at the puzzle on his console, letting intuition take the wheel and figure out what's missing, what doesn't fit quite right. He was old-school, not obsolete, and he _knows_ the answer is just beyond his fingertips. It's times like these he almost feels like his old self again. This is what he does: making the world a slightly less miserable place to be, in any way he can, because his breath might as well be used for _something_.

Both androids have stopped talking. They're watching him, coin and pen rotating in unison. Connor's eyes are...soft. A faint, fond smile quirking a line into his cheek. The world breaks through, in a crack that mixes affection and frustration in the pit of his stomach. Those long looks of his always-

"Oh! Did you hear the heads of the CyberLife Watch will be visiting soon?" Nolan chirps, leaning forward with a bright smile. "Imagine how much more confidence would could inspire if we catch the culprit even sooner."

Hank's shoulders bristle.

"...I get it, you think at a thousand miles per hour, but that's not how _I_ work." He growls. "This isn't the god _damn_ Olympics."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that..." Nolan starts, face falling. Hank doesn't want to look away from his console -- it'll wreck the careful conclusion his subconscious is figuring out -- but he's already going off like a rocket.

"Doesn't matter what you meant. This is what I got. Figure out why the _hell_ you're here, Nolan. While you're making nice and living up to the Department's good boy image your folk are getting _fucked up_. You're here because of Connor, right?" The double meaning isn't lost. He's too smart for that. "Then take what counts and keep your eye on what actually _matters_."

Nolan stares at him, face completely still. The only sign of mortification the faint, useless twitch of his fingers around the pen shaft. A gentle weight on his wrist centers him, right into the middle of a reality he tries to keep at an arm's length, and he can't help but shake away from it. Connor holds on, anyway. Turns him a little to look him in the eye.

"...Hank." He murmurs, tone tender enough to stripe a welt on his skin. "I think you should take a break."

Hank sighs harshly and glances at that same face. The same face he sees when waking up in the morning. The same face he says goodnight to over the phone or on the front steps of the precinct. Connor stares back, cool as anything, and the fire dwindles down to a cold, gray ember. ...It figures. The scariest thing on his mind's backburner isn't the fresh horror stories delivered on his doorstep, but _domesticity_. Hank swallows back the bitter coffee sticking his throat as Connor takes one of his hands, then the other, folding them between his own.

"I'm worried, Hank. You've worked hard, but this is your seventh cup."

"Sorry. Lost count." He huffs, a pathetic sound that barely pitches into a chuckle. "Guess that...proves your point, huh."

Nolan hasn't budged or said a word, all the while. More somber than he's ever seen him. His LED blinks yellow, once, then goes back to blue. Connor's follows suit. With another lingering look -- one that makes Hank's dead ember shrink further, into a shriveled seed -- his partner straightens again and turns to his peer, starting a conversation he can't hear. Maybe checking if he's okay. Maybe just keeping him in check. They eventually speak out loud, though. Always putting him first, for some reason.

"It got me to thinking...Markus had been classified as possessing nearly 40% foreign parts, last he was seen." Connor says, flipping his coin again. "His thoughts on the matter would no doubt provide a lot of insight on the matter."

Embarrassed and frustrated as he is, it's times like this that make him realize, all over again...he might want something more.

"Ah. Yes, I found that an interesting detail. He's also a prototype with parts that wouldn't be available on the market for an estimated five years. Do you think he could be a direct or indirect influence on the recent slate of recalls?" Nolan twirls the ballpoint pen between his fingers. "I've seen some androids exchanging parts in solidarity with his movement."

"Yes..." Connor glances Hank's way, expression shuttered. "...I'd heard of that."

Hank rubs at his knuckles, feeling along the silky smooth warmth leftover from Connor's touch, barely listening. It's not rocket science. There's no fucking mystery here. Why... _wouldn't_ he want to go the next level with him? Guy's a stand-up act. He's intelligent, as thoughtful as he is smart as a _whip_ , and he would _happily_ spend the better part of an hour debating the difference. He's also generous, in both his time and his thoughts, which would be more than enough in this shit world. It's not even the end of it, though. It's never the end. Every new day with him brings something new.

Giving him something healthy to eat. Fixing his satellite. Standing by his side when he was steamrolled by Fowler or sneered at by Allen. Watching his back on the field. Asking...if he was _well_.

Again and again and again. Never any strings attached.

His eyes start to sting. Hank has to fake another coffee break ("Water.", he tells them). Yeah. That's...exactly the thing. He's not the guy he used to be. That's what Connor _should_ have. _That_ guy, with a fierce glint in his eye and a gallon of stupid hope in his heart. Not this flabby fucking sequel. Didn't matter he's been trying (and failing) to kick the habit for months now. Shows up to work on time, occasionally goes out on the weekends. That's not enough. That won't _be_ enough, for a person that regularly handed him the world in the palm of his hand like it was no big deal.

He's just not... _enough_.

Hank sips the office water and tells his tastebuds to stuff it. Fuck if _that_ wasn't a phrase so worn out it could actually be deemed mummified. Thing was, he was a mean detective. He could even be a mean friend, when he managed to wrangle friendship into a concept he could handle for extended periods of time. That just...didn't mean _shit_ when it came to the vulnerability demanded of a relationship. There were days where just the memory of Darlene and the days spent under her roof feels like somebody else's. Like an android with foreign parts. Mismatched and crude.

...Ha. He's nearly as fucked-up as Nolan.

"Hey." Tina says, shuffling in with a barely stifled yawn. Hank pours her a cup and hands it over, because she clearly needs it. "Thanks, Hanks."

"Take a break." He pats her shoulder. "You look more unsteady than an Xbox."

"Woah. I forgot those existed." She sips her drink. "Mm."

They make small talk about why an apparently expensive dark roast tastes like shit and if Fowler was ever going to grow his hair out again. Cole threatens to interrupt, and Hank gulps down four more cups in a pathetic attempt to self-medicate. He's a shitshow in bed and on the field, craving the same thing and none of the same thing and pushing away _both_. ...Except they weren't the same. He said so himself. Hank crumples the paper cup in his fist and flings it into the bin. It's a bad day when human relationships seem more simple by comparison. Connor was...good to him. _Is_ good to him. That's why he has to cut it off, as soon as possible.

For _his_ sake.

It's almost time to go home, anyway. He'll have to pick up his work once he's gotten some rest, if only for the sake of those poor fucks waking up blocks away from their home in an impersonal horror story. If there's anything straightforward and relatively painless in his life, it's passing out in front of the television with his dog. He's hardly clocked off and is already craving more caffeine. Water wasn't going to fix him in a day. One last cup of drip couldn't hurt. What he sees in the lunch room ends up changing his mind entirely.

Androids did odd shit all the time. Forgot to put their skin back on, stared off into space a little too long while processing. Scribbled nonsense letters and numbers all over the wall. Thing is, they _usually_ did it out of sight. They know how sensitive humans are to the uncanny valley and deviancy, even now, has to butt heads with the desire not to make waves. The strangest thing he's ever seen Connor do was nearly a month back, when he'd come home an hour early. Hank had been desperate to get out of the cold, bulling through the door and shuffling right into the kitchen where the portable heater was sitting pretty on the table. Connor's jaw was off. Off and in one _hand_.

_A glimpse of the tongue, dangling like a loose string, snaps up and disappears as his lower jaw hinges back to skull._

_"...Sorry, Hank." He says, now that he can use his mouth again. "You're freezing."_

He didn't ask why he did it, nor did Connor offer to explain. Sometimes things were better left unsaid. Hank stares down at the two cups of coffee spilled on the lunchroom floor, wondering if that wisdom applies. A sight he wouldn't think twice about if there was a clumsy human or two in the room, right now as out-of-place and eerie as a blue moon on a sunny day.

Both androids are standing not an inch away, staring right into each other's eyes. Their LEDs are frozen yellow. They're almost nose-to-nose, expressions tight with shock and so identical it's like seeing an optical illusion. Nolan's hand is a glossy white. Hank's sure breathing too loud will break the spell that's filled the room as surely as water. Slowly, with a slick sound he still hears only rarely, the fake skin pulls back over. A glove in reverse.

Hank leaves before they see him. He gets in his shitty car, goes home and stocks up early on what little willpower he has left not to refuse Connor staying overnight.

\--

_He doesn't want to fire. He might not have a fucking choice. The guy's muttering a mantra, faster and faster, a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off._

_"Whatever you want, Hank. Whatever you want. Whatever you want. Whatever you want. Whatever you want."_

"Good morning, Hank."

When he wakes up next to a dimpled cheek and the world's cleanest bedhead he nearly has a _goddamn stroke_.

"Hank?" Connor starts, leaning over him with a worried frown. "What's wrong? You're sweating..."

"'m fine." He pushes him away when he shifts in close, stomping over to the bathroom to wash his face off. "'m fine."

...Fuck. _Fuck_. It'd been one of the best nights he's ever had, too.

Marathon sex in the twilight hours is better than any sleep aid. His ability to pass out was usually contingent on a perfect number of bottles and foreshadowed by how many times he hallucinated shit out in the corner of his eyes. That dry, withered part of him thinks that's why Connor bothers coming over to his pig sty of a house at all (and his pig sty of a partnership), when _his_ place is no doubt pristine to the point of sparkling. Maybe he kept these thoughts to himself, but Connor no doubt knows. He pretty much knows everything.

Connor had arrived late last night -- always doing a thousand things at once -- and made him something to eat. Cleaned his place, rubbed his back. Then he took Sumo to the backyard so they could fuck with impunity, working off the stress of the week off doggy-style, up the wall _and_ on the couch. Hank was spent after coming twice, but he'd been more than happy to help Connor along. The android could keep going for hours past human potential and Hank enjoyed his front-row seat to his ecstasy. Happy memories are flickering in his mind now -- flushed cheeks and parted lips and the sound of his name -- but they're losing against the guilt.

_"I think I got one more in me, huh?" He pulls his fingers out -- smudging a shiny stripe on his cheek -- and curls his hand in an affectionate squeeze, just to watch Connor's soft thighs shudder._

_"Please."_

Fucking a robot instead of fucking a human. He sneered at it, once. Considered it the most poetic way humanity could literally _and_ figuratively screw itself over. Then he fell off his high horse and is _still_ feeling the bruise. Too much of a good thing. Too much of a bad thing.

Hank hunches over the counter, breathes hot and heavy into one palm as it all swirls into panicked gibberish. He can't say he thought he was Nolan. He _won't_. He apologizes to Connor when he returns to the bedroom, wet kisses on the cheek and bad jokes and _way_ too much attentiveness when he talks about the drudgery of work, all in the hopes he can forget about it. It doesn't work -- straight-up talking about his issue is the sole apology he can't do -- and he remains Detroit's sorriest son-of-a-bitch when they head to the Department. Connor rarely lost his temper, but he's clearly bothered. He changes straight into his field uniform and clocks on early.

He really fucking hates himself sometimes.

It's all he can do to fall into the pit of overwork when he reaches his desk. His hands work automatically, jotting down notes and stream-of-consciousness thoughts into his casefiles in a gradual, blessed blur. The guilt pushes anyway, though. Growls and grumbles in his peripheries, ever threatening to find other ways of getting attention. Not even staring contests with The Dollmaker's case photos can keep them at bay.

"Hello, Lieutenant Anderson."

Hank glances up through his hair at Nolan. Without alcohol or a stress nap it just takes the form of honesty he can't take.

"...Sorry to bother you." He doesn't quite look him in the eye today. "I could use your thoughts on something."

What sense did it make, running away? Why _wouldn't_ someone want to be looked at like _this_ , all the time?

"Sure. What do you need?"

Gazed at tenderly, as if they weren't the short-tempered, slovenly fuck-up of the century. Held throughout the night, _clung_ to, as if they were...special. _Actually_ special, instead of that faux-spiritual bullshit about every last thing with a beating heart being worth saving. Christ, those kinds of conversations made him want to vomit. Nolan is still watching him, head-on while his eyes are a hair away from a direct gaze. Like usual it's his flaccid self-esteem trying to speak for him. All this tip-toeing around a guy who was set up for failure isn't fair. He should apologize, but the words stick in his neck and don't budge.

"Also...just call me Hank." Hank murmurs, guilt turning his chest cold. "It's fine."

Nolan's dark gaze shifts, moving that hair's breadth back to hold onto his. A full view of that admiration, respect, and...

"Whatever you like." Android eyes make the average bird look like they operate on cataracts. He hopes he can't see his skin popping up in goosebumps, and only some of them pleasant. "Are you...feeling all right?" His voice dips with concern. "Your heart rate is erratic."

"Not usually, no." Hank manages a smile, dry though it is. "Feeling all right, that is. Heart's barely been a notch above grocery store steak for years. Thanks for asking, though."

Nolan tilts his head a little, eyebrows bouncing up at the sarcasm. Hank feels _very_ safe in saying that's probably just an RK800 quirk.

"Well. I'm sorry to hear that. Truly." He spreads out his palms. "The news I bring isn't exactly pleasant."

The Dollmaker has struck again. _Yet_ again, they're left in the position of offering useless platitudes and trying to pick up where they left off, with the ever ingenious element of this piece of shit having handiwork _literally_ in several places at once: an AJ700 was found not two hours ago, with the torso of a BL100 and the feet of a BV500, and was estimated to have been abandoned last night. Hank already feels his entire body shifting in accordance with the disturbance in routine. Another trail to follow. More being stretched thin. Sometimes it feels the only ones that would have any hopes of keeping track of this shit is another android.

"...Last night. Shit. I was at home." Hank mutters, cross-referencing his schedule over the past twenty-four hours for anything he could've noticed. Nolan doesn't respond, staring silently at the screen like nothing else exists. A prickle of deja vu works its way over his scalp. "...What were you up to?"

The images flit past one-by-one, the crime scene flickering lights off his angular cheekbones. Nolan's eyes scroll a perfect right-to-left-to-right, side-to-side like an old-school dot matrix printer.

"Writing."

Fuck him and his compulsions. Hank's stomach turns itself into a damning knot. If he's hurt about _still_ being viewed as suspicious, he doesn't show it. His LED is a scrolling, studious yellow, eyes narrowing and relaxing in turns. It's hard not to think of Connor's careful facade during his first days at the Department...how he started twitching more, _expressing_ more, after a certain point. An 'emotional shock' was the layman's term for becoming sentient, but it also doesn't seem that simple. Connor had already shown signs of something else early on. That smile when talking about dogs and music. The way he looked at that recording of Markus at the Stratford Tower.

Nolan's eyes flick up to his, past the fuzzy overlay of the digital projection. Eyebrows raised, ever so slightly, with a question. Hank looks away. He's blamed him for his nightmares. Almost blaming him for The Dollmaker.

...Did he remember being indirectly blamed for a little boy's death, too?

"All right, look sharp!"

Fowler's booming yell across the main lobby is a welcome distraction; they all need to look sharp for some surprise visitors. A familiar sneer and high collar a second later makes Hank's curiosity wilt. There goes the day, what little there was to lose.

"Hank."

Hank grits a smile and nods.

"Perkins."

Guy's still not happy about being slugged in the face half a year back for, as he once put it, 'fucking feel-good robo-rights'. Sucks to be him. Hank crosses his arms and waits quietly with the rest of the crew; Connor's returned from the ground team to stand side-by-side with Nolan, the former's hands folded politely in front of him and the latter leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. It's incredible the guy still manages not to look rude when he pulls that stance. Tina's hair is short and stick-straight, yet he can see a few strands poking out of her field ponytail and she's barely stifling a yawn. She, Chris and the rest of the main floor stare rather hard _past_ the special agent, with better reason than the obvious.

Nikolai's stopped by, too.

The brand new RK900 model created after Connor and co-head of the fresh CyberLife Watch (or colloquially known 'CyberWatch'): a prototype's prototype who came with all the latest gizmos and, according to some _very_ trigger-happy tabloids, ability to pick up a show pony if he put his mind to it. His high-collared duster coat, gray jeans and gray leather gloves wouldn't be out of place in a fashion show. Even the few flecks of snow caught in his hair look painted on. No, the only thing that's out-of-place is Hank. As old and ugly as ever, trying to appear relatively composed and instead growing cold at the sight of the same face, same shoulders, same...

"Good to meet you, Lieutenant."

The RK900's smile is smooth and warm. No dimple.

"Though I _do_ wish it were under better circumstances." His handshake is firm, with that little extra squeeze tapering before the drop, like two casual friends meeting each other after some time apart. It's...refreshing. Folk were always trying to outgrip each other or doing that limp fish shit that just made everyone in the room feel awkward. "How is the day treating you?"

"Probably better than yours. I'm not tasked with keeping the newly awoken android population in check." Hank shrugs. Never mind having to chase Markus down, something he actually wouldn't wish on his worst enemy...or anyone, since the man didn't deserve a pack of bloodhounds on him. "Though it's probably easier than rallying human government agents, huh?"

"Ah, correction. I'm not a deviant hunter, or any sort of equivalent, anymore." Nikolai chuckles, deep as a car engine, and gives him a wink. "I'm not even deviant."

Hank blinks. Is...that a joke? It's certainly framed like one...

"Humans know humans best." He continues. "Androids, well...it stands to reason. I simply oversee the process. Make sure the margin for human error is reduced as much as possible in today's tumultuous times, again with deviant error, maintaining CyberLife's high standards all the while. My top speed and pre-packaged abilities are little more than a coat of paint, I'm afraid."

He takes the time to greet everyone in the room individually, as much as it seems to _wreck_ Perkins; sour fuck's arms are crossed so hard they'll probably never come unstuck, thin mouth scowling as Nikolai shakes Chris's hand and asks about his wife's health, then grips Tina's and offers a compliment to her most recent employee commendation. Donovan stares at the man like he's a celebrity, LED blinking a constant yellow. Hank feels the urge to smile when Nikolai claps him on the shoulder. The Department could use more decency. Confident without being proud. Graceful without being a pushover. It's just one little thing that doesn't click.

Sumo.

He's never forgotten how he reacted that night. The dog had been friendly to Connor right from the jump (despite the android breaking and entering). He'd been skittish around Nolan at first -- small wonder there -- then grew to more or less accept his presence the rare time he saw him, even if he doesn't wag his tail _quite_ as much. When Nikolai arrived on his doorstep, politely apologetic about the odd hour and asking about a runaway deviant...Sumo fled. Fucking _fled_ , like he was being chased, and Hank had been stupid enough to write it off as the dog having his fill of weird visitors.

"Despite the new and unusual crimes being laid on our doorsteps, I've heard good things about the changes being implemented here. Good things about _all_ of you and the mark you'll leave on Detroit's future." Nikolai finishes as he shakes the last person's hand; Diana, the new secretary, currently trying and failing to hide a blush. "I may be coming by in-person more often, until everyone is properly situated, and thank you in advance for having me."

Perkins starts to open his mouth. Nikolai glances at him -- hardly more than a flick of his eyes -- and he, to Hank's utter amazement, actually shuts it.

" _Ah_. Connor and Nolan."

Nikolai smiles and spreads his hands, reminding him, weirdly enough, of a teacher meeting students for the first time. Shit, for all he knows this _is_ the first time they've met; what went on behind-the-scenes at all those android assembly plants might as well be on another planet. The android's expression is as agreeable as a lifetime special, LED flickering from blue to yellow as they exchange digital words. Connor tilts his head, temple blinking. Then Nolan's does. One after another in an on-and-off pattern, like Christmas lights. Then Nolan's eyes narrow, like he just heard something he didn't like.

"...Are we finished with the kumbaya?" Perkins growls. "It hardly takes you more than a millisecond to say hello to another android, is that right?"

"...Humans from all walks of life. A newly inducted PC200. Two RK800s that shock and awe simply by being in the same _room_ together." Nikolai doesn't even turn his way. "I think this is a wonderful occasion that deserves at least a minute's appreciation."

Chris is doing his best to keep a polite face, and with good reason. Perkins has been legendarily petty for years and is not at _all_ above abusing rank. Didn't matter one bit he's sat at the top of the food chain for longer than Fowler's been the boss. Hank studies the way Connor glances sidelong at Nolan, expression steady and eyes softening with concern. Always looking out for his peer, in one way or another. Hank suddenly jerks to attention when a voice says, a little too close:

"Happy with your double package?"

Real clever, that line. When's the last time Perkins got fucking laid? Not that he deemed a person's worth by how many notches in a headboard they had, but this is one guy he _knows_ hasn't been able to touch someone's genitals without money up front. Guy's fixing him with a beady little stare, just waiting for another slip-up. He'll be waiting awhile.

"Yeah, having to sort through the petty crimes of the day _and_ keep track of The Dollmaker is pretty rough shit." Hank grunts. "Still got time to play Tetris, though."

He knows he's talking about the Department's wonder duo. He also knows the guy doesn't have much of a leg to stand on right now with his second-in-command taking center stage, soaking up all the attention _and_ making him look like a chump without trying. Perkins's prune mouth and hard water attitude was destined to fail.

"Happy with _your_ assistant?" Hank asks. The man pretends to notice something across the room.

"Head of the counterterrorism division, actually."

Damn, does it feel _good_ to hear him say it with the tone of someone who's been backhanded and is in no position to do shit about it. Hank has to chew on his tongue to keep from snickering. A familiar feminine voice turns him back to the proceedings.

"Thank you for stopping by." Tina is saying, voice faint with exhaustion. "It's nice to have a little morale boost once in a while...it's been so crazy sometimes I don't know which way is up-"

"All right, all right. Cut it short. We're not here to lift morale. We're here to get things done." Perkins says, effectively cutting off what good cheer Nikolai managed to drum up in the lobby's gray hell.

"Ah...yes, sir-" She starts, automatically, only to blink when Nolan places a hand on her shoulder.

"If you'll excuse me...morale is one of our finest tools. After the revolution social unease has spread like a virus of sorts, from human to android, and the cure is still a great distance away. Some of the proudest achievements we _have_ is being able to sow strong relationships, rather than fear, with the populace."

The quiet lobby dims to a dull roar. Tina looks caught between staggering embarrassment and relief, smiling stiffly and shifting from foot-to-foot. Connor's face remains as stiff as a lamp post, eyebrows twitching so slightly it could be his imagination. Perkins' eyes, never one for subtlety, outright narrow.

"I'm not about to have someone less than three months _old_ -" He hisses.

"-and _there_ you have it." Nikolai interjects, pushing his hands into his pockets with a bow of his head. "Well said, Nolan."

Hank doesn't bother to hide his grin now. Consider that being told _twice_. Fowler pops into view again, offering a coarse apology about the time, and Perkins turns around a touch too quickly.

Nikolai follows Fowler with a swirl of his coat, superior slinking behind like _he's_ the one in tow. The lobby comes back to life in fits and starts, returning to the low-key drone he's had buzzing in his life for fifteen years; ha, it's only when a notorious jackass slithers onto the premises does any sort of cheer come into getting _back_ to the grind. Tina promptly strolls off, shoulders sagging with what he knows is more relief at being done with the whole thing. Chris keeps his mouth shut, right back to professional, and asks if anyone wants something to eat on his way to the shop. The only one who watches Perkins leave is Nolan.

It's not a rude look...but it's not a polite one, either. In other words, completely fitting. Hank gives Nolan a small smile, which the android doesn't return. He offers a curt nod, then turns smartly on one heel and follows Connor outside.

For the rest of the day he wonders...just how much he's gotten right about it all.

\--

If bad days were gourmet dishes, he's been the buffet's guest of honor.

The weather is little more than an ugly middle finger, dreary and cold and wet; just because he's been lucky enough to work inside most of the day doesn't erase the gloom. Connor's been called out of the city on a meet-and-greet in West Bloomfield, meaning it'll be _days_ before they can curl up next to each other. On top of it all his car's at the shop after a fender bender that'd make The Fast And The Furious: Modern Redacted look slow-paced. Fucking universe isn't done chomping on him yet. He may be a miserable son-of-a-bitch, but, fuck, he can't possibly taste _that_ good.

Hank bookmarks a video to watch on his phone later and changes his password, just in case. He's getting so old he's swinging back _right_ over to young: putting a timestamp on his loneliest and most pathetic moments.

Porn had seen something of a renaissance, thanks to androids. People could get as creepy or vanilla as they please, wrapped up with a nice bow without any of the guilt. Never run the risk of upsetting the wife or skeeving out a potential partner by trying one out. After the revolution this has, unsurprisingly, left _many_ rattled -- some still didn't believe the 'hype' about sentience and went about business as usual, others jumped ship as quickly as possible. His own tastes run a little closer to conventional, but it's hard not to get curious when he sees some of the tags. Shameless voyeurism felt a little easier when the person on the other end wasn't a... _person_. It's during his worst days he wonders if his alternate self in a parallel universe was a creep masturbating on public transit.

" _Watch me, then_.", the HK400 model the other night said, after Connor had stayed late at work and Hank couldn't take his own company anymore. Plush lips that must be a sin to bite into, hazel eyes dreamier than any fantasy. It'd been one of his most successful sessions, which just made him feel all the crappier when he finally wiped himself down and dozed off. It didn't make sense to beat off to porn while in a relationship with a person who'd happily suck him off if he asked. Except to fuck-ups.

Fuck-ups understood _just_ fine.

Hank shuffles through the best song to compliment the seven-layer cake of self-loathing he's bitten into as he waits for the bus. Someone brushes past him and, against his better instinct, his nose tries its best to shrivel into itself. He hasn't taken the transit in a while. He _definitely_ doesn't miss it. People always smell like piss, for some reason, when they weren't going off on religious tangents or failing to mind their own business. While he wasn't exactly a bastion of pretty smells on a good day, he at least didn't smell like a fucking colostomy bag. Dark hair and a soft smile provide tonight's distraction. His heart does a happy patter _and_ his skin crawls. Two completely contradictory sensations he supposes he'll have to live with.

Nolan's the only android on this stretch of sidewalk. Never an accident, that sort of thing. It's a testament to either his confidence in self-defense or complete lack of sanity he'd linger, anyway. He's staring up at the sky, though there's not much to look at except gray and more gray. The light on his temple blinks on and off, blending in with the winking lights from passing cars and the flickering lights above his head, the only difference its color. When he turns -- at some noise, perhaps -- he smiles at the sight of him. Just like Connor, despite the dark peacoat and tidy scarf.

"...Fancy seeing you in this shit hole." Hank tugs his headphones off and folds them away. The android tilts his head to the empty stop.

"Delay." There are no puffs of cold air around his head. "By the sounds of it this is an hour-long issue, at the least."

Fucking great. Hank sighs and starts to pull out his phone. Nolan lets out a sharp _aha!_ that makes him nearly drop it. His LED is blinking happily.

"I just checked the news." He doesn't spew out a recording, but the way he's rattling off a _far_ too specific commentary seems like he's reading an article, anyway. "There have been maintenance issues plaguing the Station for at least six months. Today is when it chose to come to a head." A wry smile. "Bad time management, by the sounds of it."

"Eh. City's throwing its fit. Lots of change. Little time to, uh...manage it all." Hank rubs the cold from his hands with little success. "We probably change real slow, in your eyes."

"You change as much as you're able, with your physiology." Nolan shrugs. "In your eyes we must seem too fast."

Another miserable breeze slithers beneath the overhang and makes him wish he bled wool. When he glances over he startles at the sight of Nolan trembling. He's seen it before, but not often enough to shave off the _novelty_ of it all. Androids didn't sweat or shed -- their 'skin' was just a flexible, rubbery fluid stretched over a projector -- but they shivered. It's little human affects like that which suddenly makes them completely familiar, instead of the usual uncanny whisper, and Hank thinks he understands all over again the saying: " _The devil you know_ ".

"...Cold as balls up here. Want to wait inside?"

"Sure."

They find (or, at least, _try_ to find) the cleanest spot to stand on on the floor below. Metro's a dingy wonderland of neon and trash; Hank tries to find something more interesting to look at than the occasional schmuck looking at their phone or rats scuttling in the shadows, but his eyes flick back to the android standing a careful (and probably _exact_ to the inch) foot to his right. Draped in fluorescence that makes his skin glow, just a touch. Blending in with this modern world better than him, or any human, could. Connor often wore his work jacket around. Nolan tended to swap it for designer leather or coy little button-ups.

"Smells like shit." Hank mutters, as another conversation starter. Anything's better than listening to his own thoughts. Nolan stares at something in the dark.

"Like spilled soda, dirt, fast food condiments, body odor and shit." A smirk. "Rat and bird scat, specifically."

Ha. Back to arrogant. It's fascinating how he seems to be at comfort anywhere he goes, despite being unwelcome in so _many_ people's eyes. Human unpredictability, just one of the RK800's many shiny, new features. He's back to glancing at him, as much as he tries to help it. Studying the glistening sheen of outside's dreary condensation along his jacket. A typical low, even for _his_ legendarily pathetic ass-

"Why not at work?" Nolan says, abruptly, still staring off at something he can't see.

Hank blinks. When he doesn't follow up with anything else he rubs a pinky in his ear.

"...Sorry? Must've missed the rest of the question."

"There are times to work and times to rest. Even a machine has to review and recharge." He repeats, slowly, inspecting his shirt cuffs and folding them back to flick off a speck of dust only he can see. "...Why not wait until you're making money before tearing yourself apart?"

Downloading his entire life in a second. Why the hell did he even bother trying to bottle up anything around them?

"Time doesn't stop for humans." Hank mutters. "We just barrel forward and hope we stick the landing."

"Time slows down, though." Nolan counters. "In many different ways."

He doesn't know how he got closer. Just like Connor he's tall, but just two inches below him, enough that he can enjoy that little thrill of a handsome face looking up his way. He doesn't have to imagine any sort of adoration, though. Nolan's dark eyes hold onto his, nibbling on the very corner of his mouth. A little catch of teeth on skin. The hiss of bus valves signal the arrival of one of the city's transit. Hank has no idea if it's theirs.

"I'm sorry for my overly familiar behavior at the precinct...Hank." Nolan pauses, as if his permission to use first name basis still is overstepping a boundary. His voice dips with shame. "A lot of this is...new to me. This life of mine is still being fine-tuned. Stepping on people's toes is inevitable, as much as I wish it weren't. I'm also aware you might be experiencing modern jamais. The uncanny valley that comes with seeing a near-identical face on top of a non-human identity."

They had a _word_ for that? Well, shit. That aside, it's a good apology. None of that ' _if you were offended_ ' or ' _you should've known better than to feel_ ' garbage. A memory that feels a lot older than it actually is drowns it out.

_"I'm sorry for my behavior back at the police station. I didn't mean to be unpleasant..."_

"Let me know what you need me to do, Hank..." Nolan finishes, softly. "...and I'll do it."

Hank stares, entire body tense and cold and something else he can't describe. He wants to ask if he remembers. Remembers any of what happened, anything at all, but he's afraid if he does it'll...fuck, it'll mess with him. Hurt his feelings, like he can't escape the past almost literally drawn out from day one. It could jog his memory, too, if he really _doesn't_ remember. Ah, fuck. This shit isn't fair. The man's an individual, no matter how strange his origins, and constantly dragging him into the past was...well, it _is_ exactly what Hank keeps doing to himself.

He owes _him_ an apology. Hank shifts from foot-to-foot, in some meager attempt to gain his bearings on something far too overdue.

"Look, you...you don't have to do anything. Nolan, you've...been doing more than enough for the Department. For the city." Hank winces. Already fucked that one up. "No, not in the sense you're just _productive_ , though you certainly are...just that you're..." Shit, he really _is_ bad at this, isn't he? "...appreciated. Looking out for me when I'm sick as a dog? Sticking up for Tina during the meeting? It's..." He clears his throat. "... _that_ shit that counts. Not swaggering around for the attention of higher-ups or shining your badge. Just...giving someone a helping hand. Who needs it but doesn't know how to ask."

Slower than a traffic crawl Nolan's smooth bravado melts away. He blinks at him, once, twice. Faint and kind of wondering. Hank gets the warm-yet-uncomfortable feeling...he hasn't had anyone say something like this before.

"Um. Right. What a normal person would've said, with a lot less syllables and backtracking..." He rubs at his hair and looks somewhere else. Away from that stunned -- _grateful_ \-- face he hasn't earned one bit of. "...thanks."

The android's hands twitch, as if unsure what to do. He starts to speak, but whatever he's saying is cut off by a shrill cry. Hank whips around. A young woman is in a tug-of-war with a schmuck who picked his target for the night, screeching like she's been shot. Girl's pretty skinny, so it's not at all a shock when she loses out a hot second later and nearly fumbles her balance when the guy books it down the hall. Right toward them. Hank cocks an eyebrow Nolan's way.

"...Well, I might have one thing I need you to do. Help that girl get her purse back?"

Nolan slowly smiles, as pretty as a picture, and nods.

"On it."

Tonight's Robber skids to a stop at the sight of him. Hank crosses his arms in his best imitation of a bouncer who stopped giving a fuck a long time ago. Being tall has its uses. The man takes one look at him, whirls around...and screeches to a halt _again_ at Nolan less than three feet away. Aside from going through the wall or attempting to run across the subway tracks he's nice and pinned. Doesn't stop him from shuffling back and forth in the tiny gap, like he can figure out a third path. Ha. This isn't a multiple-choice game. There's no starting over after getting clocked in the jaw and dragged back to the precinct by one ankle.

"You're _stuck_ , buddy." Hank snorts. He holds out a hand and flicks his fingers. "All right, come on. Hand it over."

Sucker's barely pushing thirty, with some _godawful_ Chinese tattoos slathered all over his neck and topped off with one meager haircut. The guy looks him over for one hard second, which is a pretty generous amount of time, what with him pushing six foot two and _still_ on the wrong side of hefty. Hank squares his shoulders and spreads his feet, just a little, to drive the point home.

"Oh, fuck this..."

Whatever's possessed him into thinking he has a better chance with the android, _fuck_ knows. For a brief second he seems little more than a moron of the finest order, stalking straight up to Nolan, until a pistol handle glints out of his pocket.

"Shit, Nolan, _watch out-_ "

Hank's heart slams against his ribcage. He reaches for his pistol, but there's no need. In a dark smudge his eyes can _barely_ catch the weapon arcs in the air and goes spinning to the ground, then the culprit's stumbling back and bumping into his chest. Hank shoves him off, instinctively, then curses himself for not snagging him then and there. Nolan kicks the gun to skid and hit the far wall. With another curse he tugs out a back-up that glints crisply in the sour light.

"Careful, Hank!"

Nolan reaches into his pocket...and pulls out a _pen_. The man stands there, utterly stunned...then barks a sharp laugh that rings against the subway walls. Hank, on the other hand, can only see a railroad spike. Dark in the shadow of his front door, caked in what can't _only_ be rust-

"The fuck? That all you got?" The would-be robber adjusts his grip into a horizontal angle. "Stupid robot-"

Hank's sense of time blurs...or the android moves so fast his eyes aren't working. The knife hits the ground, _right_ by the gun, and Nolan has a fist buried in the man's hair, wrenching his head back to fully face the failing corncob LEDs. The other pins the pen to his jugular, point _right_ where the skin gets thin. The robbery victim has done little more than shuffle nervously this whole time, a hand over her mouth and the other floating uselessly in the air. For a few seconds nobody says a word, the only sound the rumble of machinery above.

"...I think you should apologize." The android commands, smile bright. His LED has never once changed from blue. " _Now_."

"Fuck, fine, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay-" He stammers, grimacing when the response is a disdainful snort and a _twist_ to his hair that's nearly audible.

"Not to _me_. To the nice woman whose week you were about to ruin." Nolan raises his eyebrows and tilts his head in a way that'd put a scolding parent to shame. "Identity theft remains among the top three most common, and _destructive_ , crimes today."

Hank tries not to belly laugh at the guy's expression. He's _clearly_ reaching his limit; his hands twitch, no doubt wrangling with risking a movement, and it's not missed. The pen's point slowly, carefully, digs into his skin. Hard enough for a little red dot to pop to the surface. Nolan's smile doesn't leave. Somehow, Hank knows that's the deciding factor in their favor.

"I'm...I'm sorry, miss." He goes slack with defeat, Adam's apple bouncing erratically. "I-I'm sorry."

"Thank you for your cooperation." Nolan holds him by his hair a second longer, then pushes him toward the woman and watches every single, slinking step with a hawk's eye. "Now give her the purse back, scuttle off into the night and try to make a good decision next time."

Hank hasn't seen such a sorry sight, and he makes sure to look in the mirror at least once per _day_. The last lingering look they get is more incredulous than embarrassed -- like he can't believe he's being let go -- and, without another word, the nuisance of the night vanishes around the corner. The victim thanks them both profusely, shaking their hands (and trembling hard enough to see). Nolan refuses the offer of payment with a charming smile and shake of his head, one that makes her pale cheeks flush bright. Hank feels his own throat getting a little thick and weird. Guy even makes doing a good _deed_ look easy.

"...Well." Hank sighs, watching her leave with both hands in his pockets. "That could've gone a _lot_ worse." He frowns when Nolan watches him with a look of mild wonder. "...What?"

"You kept your cool."

"And you _didn't?_ "

It's unlike the confident, pristine android he sees gliding from one task to another in the Department. He's never seemed so human-like than right now, bobbing his shoulders with a self-conscious laugh and fiddling with his collar.

"I'm...afraid of failure." Nolan's shoulders bob again. "I may not look it, but these situations have me second-guessing more than I'd like. Software error, maybe."

Hank swallows again. ...Yeah. Or maybe it's just a side-effect of giving a shit, despite an entire world regularly giving good reasons not to. His expression is plain on his face, because Nolan's face falls.

"Let me know what you need me to do, Hank...and I'll do it."

It's a bad thing to ask.

When he takes Nolan by the front of his collar and tugs him into a dingy corner behind the stairs below his mental clusterfuck comes back, tenfold aggressive and telling him the mistake only gets worse.

When Nolan showed up on his doorstep out of nowhere, blood on his shoes and a grin on his face, he'd been Connor. A Connor model, that ended in -60. He'd grabbed him by both cheeks and kissed him like they hadn't seen each other in _years_ , when they'd only known each other for a few torturous minutes. Right now he's kissing the same, holding his face and bobbing his head from the force of it, like he's trying to devour him headfirst. Important questions nibble in the back of his mind, but Nolan is nibbling _far_ better, perfect teeth eating away at his lip and making it throb plaintively in the cold air.

"Hank." The android whispers, cradling his face and staring up at him with eyes so dark they never end. "Oh, Hank."

' _Sorry, Connor. Bastard's your spitting image._ '

"Let's go somewhere else."

Nolan's whisper is hoarse, just a little breathless. He's not pitying him. No, Hank must just be pitying himself, and being kept company through the fallout.

"Come with me."

What's his age again? He's the furthest thing from an answer when they go into the station's fuck-awful bathroom and pick out a narrow little stall to call their own. Nolan seems like the type to get caught up in the ugly details, but he doesn't seem to give one shit the seat looks like it hasn't been scrubbed in days and there are knife marks criss-crossing all over the left side wall. He pushes Hank onto his ass and carefully locks the door behind him. Hank is secretly grateful these toilets are too cheap to be the automatic flushing types as Nolan shuffles his pants down, that lovely stretchy material that hugs his ass so nicely making his pale skin pop.

Shit, he'd suck him off. Wasn't something he did often anymore, nor was really all _that_ into, but right now he wants nothing more than to hear that casually smug voice shattering into pieces; guy would look _incredible_ leaning over him and smirking through shadow. Yeah, he definitely doesn't know his age anymore. Nolan doesn't grab him by his hair and pull him to the floor, though. Now he's undoing his belt and popping open the fly, nudging his knee with _his_ knee to get him to shift up a little.

"Wait, catch me up. What are we doing?" Hank breathes, reaching up to steady a hand on his hip. Nolan's smile is sharp as a knifepoint.

"Each other, last I checked."

Cheeky bastard. Hank is perfectly fine with being read like an open book now, mouth curving all on its own as Nolan pushes the hand on his hip down to his ass. Hank's grin freezes when he reaches in.

"Why are you..." His tongue turns to sandpaper. "You're already _wet_."

Nolan grins, dimple popping out to wink in the light.

"I had other plans."

Then he's pushing Hank back to squat down on his lap and there's no time to think about the implications of what he just fucking said because _fuck_. Hank spits a curse and gropes at his hips weakly, then his thighs, to slow him down or just hold him in place for one second, and Nolan rocks right through his grip, muscles bunching firm as he slips him _all_ the way in.

"Fuck, _fuck_ , slow down-"

He can barely wheeze two syllables together. This shouldn't feel good at all -- not with him so tight it feels two pressure points from snapping his dick straight off -- but, _fuck_ him, he could die like this with no regrets. Hank's hips twitch uselessly, still thrown off-guard, but Nolan picks up the slack easily, rocking and squeezing rhythmically. Those little 'false breaths' he's taking sound pretty fucking real, perking up on the exhale, and he doesn't even care he can't feel the brush of air afterwards. That neat hair is starting to shift out of its style. Hank has seen this exact shade of brown streaked with white more than once, and the guilt that suddenly burns in his sternum is stamped right out when Nolan tightens around him again.

"Oh, _Lord_ in some fuck's heaven." Hank groans. He damn near cracks his skull on the tile as his head falls back. Nolan's eyes are drenched in shadow, but it still doesn't hide the feverish glint.

"Good?" He breathes. Hank puffs his bangs out of the way, unable to muster up so much as an ironic retort. "Is this good?"

He sees it. That same hungry glow he expected to see all these weeks and never _quite_ got, now cranked up to eleven and staring at him like he's a gold coin dug out of the dirt.

"More than _good_ , Christ..." He finally gets his bearings, cupping that perky ass in both hands and adding to the repetition with twitches of his hips. "Don't know where you get that performance anxiety from."

Nolan shivers a laugh -- he must've hit a sweet spot -- and ducks his head. It'd almost be shy, if he didn't know better.

"Whatever you want, Hank."

He isn't crazy about kissing during sex -- because he's a filthy fucking animal who wants to rut as hard as possible and vent as soon as possible -- but, Jesus Christ, that _mouth_. It's a little rosy and swollen now, parted just so to show the dark dip in-between. He can't resist nipping at Connor's when he knocks on his door to stay overnight and he sure as fuck can't resist now. Hank leans forward and bites, tugs, enjoying the snap of flesh. As best he can with the android still bouncing in his lap like he's getting paid to do so.

Nolan _hums_ his pleasure, tilting his face and licking into his mouth happily. Hank grabs onto his hips again, trading off on _his_ strength to slow him to a rock; both to catch his breath and peek down to where his thighs are spread so nicely. Smooth, slim. _Strong_. Just like-

"...You like to watch?"

The android nuzzles his nose into his hair, mouth flickering along his ear. Like knows like best. Canny bastard. It's intuition what pulls at him this time, but the sight of his mouth again shrinks his attention span back down to single digits.

"Yeah. Sure." Hank pants. The android runs the tip of his tongue over his lip, turned on by something he's just done. "Why, you got something for me?"

Is it his voice that's doing it for him? Nolan's brown eyes grow hooded, still focused, hanging on his every word like a preacher's audience. He leans up and pulls off with a wet sound the shitty ventilation can't cover up. Before Hank can even muster up the breath for a curse he shifts back, turns around -- somehow graceful despite the hindrance of his jeans -- and splays both hands against the bathroom door. The cold air isn't enough to kill his boner, but it's close, and Hank sighs precious relief when his cock nestles between his cheeks. Nolan peeks at him, between his flopped bangs and the jut of his shoulder.

"Watch me, then."

Fuck. This _is_ going to kill him.

Hank takes a moment to indulge in how the lighting falls on his skin (still a little too smooth, a little _too_ springy). A marble sculpture couldn't compete. He takes one firm cheek in his hand, bunching it and pushing it between his fingers appreciatively. It's the kind he just wants to _bite_. Knead between his teeth, just to test the give. Leave pretty little marks to pinch at later (if Nolan would bother to keep them on, at any rate). He curls the flat of his palm beneath the round and pushes it outward. _Just_ enough to see the shiny, flushed hole.

A nudge inside -- barely a taste -- is already enough to have him squirming cutely in his lap, like he can't contain himself. Shit, maybe he can't. Deviancy was bizarre like that. Hank is certainly getting fed up with his own need to build something up. Still. He's gotta put this guy in his place _somehow_ , no matter how hard the android tried to convince the world and sundry he knew _exactly_ where that was. Nolan shifts his hands against the door, another test wriggle traveling down the length of his back, and rubs his ass against his balls, making his cock bob back and forth. Hank scrubs a thumb between his cheek, right over that little pucker, and the android lets out a huff that almost sounds pained.

"Talk to me." He murmurs, pushing his thumb in and watching the ring of muscle flex. "What do _you_ like?"

He's not sure if androids make their skin pink on purpose, but hell if that isn't a genuine looking blush.

"...Big." A strained chuckle follows. "...Tall." He pauses, like he's going to elaborate on some point or another, then huffs again and pushes against his hand. " _Now_ , preferably."

Hank scoffs. Not creative, but plenty honest. Nolan winks.

He stares as greedy as he fucking pleases as he holds his hips in both hands, pulls Nolan forward and sinks inside, the rim stretching like a rubber band. Phew. This is what gets him from zero to a hundred. The moan that follows is as close to a whimper as he's _ever_ heard from the cocky bastard. This position is a perfect sweet spot, even as he's not sure how far androids are on that line in the sand. All he knows is this one _hell_ of a view and he's not going to last much longer. Hank settles his heels against the floor proper and gets to work.

He digs his nails in and watches the android's fake skin pull back from the repetitive slap of his hips, going from pale to white and spreading _just_ up to the heel of his wrist. Bad and worse thoughts knock just outside the bathroom stall, muffled with each perfect, deep thrust that gets Nolan's back bending sharp. Hank sends a middle finger to his brain as he reaches around to give the android's cock a sharp tug; his afterglow will be followed up by grief in a line of nuns, perfectly filed and _impossible_ to parse out. Until then-

" _Lieutenant-_ "

A firmer grip, right above his balls. A slow, smooth squeeze _right_ to the tip. The whimper comes back, shivering right in the back of Nolan's throat, and cracks the smooth timber at the edges.

"I said call me Hank."

" _Hank_."

God, that's a _good_ sound. The only time he likes hearing his name. He's gotta hear it again. Hank jerks his hips up, a sharp _snap_ that would've knocked him straight off without that door, and the sound ratchets up to a cry that's barely bitten off. Nolan's nails claw against the plastic, head bowed so low all he can see is the top of his dark head. He must be feeling generous -- or fucked in the head, like usual -- because he tugs him by his hips so he's slumping back in his lap, held against his chest. Hank bites his ear, decides to test that mark theory, and is rewarded with another whine.

"There you go." He mutters into his skin. Against his better instinct he holds onto him more tightly, burrowing his nose into the crook of his shoulder. "There you go..."

Too close to watch now, but he's beyond caring, needing the stress of the day to _finally_ come out. Nolan hooks an arm up and around the back of his neck, head tossed back and mouth slack on a faint moan. He misses the sweat that gathers on a human body -- _actually_ misses that smelly shit -- but he can get Nolan slick another way. A licks up his neck gets it shiny and wet, with the added sound of his mouth sucking sharp between the tendon and Adam's apple. That strange fluid ripples, less like human skin and more like frost melting. It must be sensitive, somehow, because Nolan _squirms_.

"Hank." He pants again, less a word and more a wheeze, now, and his balls grow tight at just the _punch_ of it. "I can pull off, if you want..."

Shit, he'd look good with it. No doubt there. They still got the bus to catch, though, and he wasn't going to spend more time in this rat pit than he had to.

"Stay put." Hank grunts, speeding up until the seat's creaking. Who gives a damn who hears them now. "Just gonna have to -- _mm_ \-- clean up when you get home-"

The android chuckles...then digs nails into the back of his shirt, going silent except for the sharp huffing through his nose. It's just them and the heat building between the stall, the only other noise Hank cares about the delicious thrum of an overactive pump against his chest. Nothing like a human pulse. Faster. Warmer. He's growing hungrier for more cracks in Nolan's perfect facade; the messy bangs are good, the whine snapping out of him as he nears orgasm even better, but it's not _enough_. Hank digs in his nails until he feels the android shell bend, fucking him like he's trying to break him in two.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, _yes_ -" Nolan mutters, non-stop, a wonder with his mouth hanging open on that constant moan. "You're, you're just-"

He shouldn't. He does. Hank nuzzles his neck, breathes him in, then cups his jaw, twisting his head up to kiss him deep and wet. Nolan's moan is a muffled keen, jerking and holding onto his thigh hard enough to bruise. His own hits like freight train. He has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out.

There's a heavier crowd than usual above, grumbling about the delay and milling about beneath their umbrellas. It'll be like a can of sardines trying to squeeze in. Hank's bus arrives first, lights cutting through the drizzle of rain in a blurry yellow, and he's proven right immediately by the shadows bumping and jostling in the windows. Nolan's hair is tidy and neat once more, what seems like every last strand tucked back into place. He kisses Hank goodbye -- a lingering one on the mouth, slender fingers curled beneath his scruffy chin -- and tells him to get home safe.

Once he manages to finds a square of space by the window to call his own he gets to hating himself good and proper. The sensation sinks into his muscles and weighs them down. Burns sickly in his gut and makes every breath an uphill slog. He doesn't realize it until he gets home and pulls his pillow over his head...but Nolan's own orgasm had somehow been less intense than when Hank came in _him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Mauerbauertraurigkeit -- the inexplicable and overwhelming urge to push people away, friends and family and strangers alike._
> 
> This was supposed to just be a speculative, smutty one-shot, god _damn_ it. Hungry imaginations are a double-edged sword. This chapter is slow burn and build-up with a sprinkle of porn, but the next is going to be the _other_ extreme. You've been warned(???)


	2. noctilucent

**Song Inspirations:** "Did You Ever Care" by TBFM x Chilllito + "lovely" by Billie Eilish & Khalid (redrose remix)

\--

" _The point of technology is to upgrade. You remember living on the planet Earth, right?_ "

" _You don't get it! I've kept my PS4. My DVD player. I still have my Walkman! ...Or what's left of it._ "

Only reruns of the last game or the same old music video to watch. A mug of cheap hot chocolate to push back cravings, which just turns into a sloppy schnapp with his last few inches of vodka, anyway. Hank kicks up his feet on the coffee table and tries not to look too hard at all the things he can't stand in the television's pale glow. The scar on his ankle from jumping a barbed wire fence as a teenager. The mole on his right knee shaped like a bad day. The hair on thighs that haven't seen the sun in far too long. The show does a piss poor job of holding his attention, so he looks, and looks, and looks...anyway.

The twenty-something couple comedically arguing in the middle of a Cyber Buy outlet vanish when he scrubs a hand over his eyes. It's when Connor's gone he misses him the hardest, and hates himself the most.

Sort of feels like air, after a point. That...quiet, endless _cheer_ of his. What the Brits might call a stiff upper lip, though it's probably just pragmatism, with a society that views him as polite scrap metal. It sure as fuck cheers him up, still. Connor looked at everything like a problem that could be solved, with just a _little_ more egging, and it's the kind of straightforwardness Hank's all but forgotten how to do. For a deviant who was only recently learning the finer points of emotion he was affectionate. To him, to the world at large. So affectionate it _hurt_.

Hank frowns back at the screen. Ugh. He never learned these stupid characters' names. He's not really seeing them, either. His memories are playing out in HD, less snarky and a thousand times more intimate. Connor never lost an opportunity to see a case closed properly...and he never lost an opportunity to press against him in the kitchen. Curl against him in bed, behind him in a firm spoon or nestled against his chest like a cat. Hold his hand. Kiss his cheek. Each a mission. Each one never failed. Hank licks the last droplet from the cup, then drapes his neck over the back of the couch and wills the drink to kick in faster.

It's when he's here, in his house, that he needs Connor _gone_...because he can't _take_ himself in other people's company.

It's been this way for longer than he cares to remember. Even when Cole had roses in his cheeks and Darlene was the highlight of his morning there'd always been a little voice in the back of his head wondering aloud what _better_ they could both be dealing with. The man they _could_ have deserved. Hank grips his hair and tries to think of something to do -- a thing to finish, a place to clean -- as the faint fuzz of hard liquor _finally_ starts to stuff cotton into the mouth of that little voice. The push and pull of self-hate keeps it from sinking in all the way, though. Like always. It's slow, resolute. In every nook and cranny of any box and building he finds himself in.

It is what it is. He'll never wish himself on his worst enemy.

"Fuck this garbage." Hank flicks off the television and reaches beyond the couch to scratch Sumo's flank. "You love crappy sitcoms and even _you're_ not interested."

Weekends are trash. There's been no news from The Dollmaker these lonely past few days and it's truly well and fucked-up he's so mixed on the matter. It's not that he views his job as a way to fill in the time, he's just realizing this case is one of the few thin, shivering strings suspending him from an even deeper sinkhole of all his worst _things_. Did that make him a good person, chomping at the bit to enact justice, or a drop in the ocean of all things wrong with Detroit and the United States Of Fucking America, having nothing else to live for except a reactionary existence to the worst nightmares of today?

"Fuck _this_ garbage, too." Hank mutters, making a gun with his right hand and popping an invisible round into his temple.

Whatever. His biggest claim to fame this past decade and a half has been gray hair and a shit brain withered into a near-unrecognizable peach pit by age and the bottle. It's wasting no time telling him it's for the best Cole didn't live to see him turn into this, and he doesn't even have the energy to _agree_. Hank drops the cup on the couch cushion and lets the minutes slide by in a warm, hazy fuzz. No refill on the schnapp without a trip to the store. Still not drunk enough to pass out. Everyone had to die of something (he once took great pains to tell his newly minted partner over a heart attack on a bun) and yet, loneliness wasn't ready to finish him off.

When Connor calls from the next city over it only mostly feels like an intervention.

" _They were an impressively attentive audience, considering how...unusual the circumstance. Hardly an open phone screen in the crowd. That includes the ones in night conservation mode._ "

"Ha. Nothing escapes your notice. They didn't give you any trouble, right?"

" _Not at all. The staff were very polite to me, in fact._." The android's smile is so soft in what Hank is assuming to be a four or five-star hotel room. It's made at least twelve people blush today, he just knows. " _They asked me to visit again next month, saying I was one of the politest guests of honor they've had in years. Begs the question what kind of guests they've had, as I was mere civil._ "

Everyone's crazy for Connor. He handles the spotlight about as well as an artificial intelligence designed for 'human unpredictability' could -- shielding Nolan from legal fallout _and_ working tirelessly in Detroit's judicial system has seen him on the news enough times to warrant other districts wanting a piece of the pie. His speech at West Bloomsfield is a success in more than one meaning of the term (though he knows better than to get his hopes up about PR's usual hot air). Connor relays every little detail with his usual chipper disaffectedness, a warm spot only entering his voice when he asks about Hank's day.

No, he might not truly _ever_ understand him.

" _Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, Hank. Some fresh air might do you good._ " Connor says with his chin in one hand, pragmatic to a fault. Anyone else right now would have some pre-bed head or some of those travel blues. Not him. His room is dark -- ever one to conserve energy -- and it's just the light from the hallway behind him outlining the perfect angle of his dark hair in a strip of yellow. " _You're not going to bed yet...?_ "

"No. Might do a little more thinking." Hank rubs his forehead and leans toward the computer a little. "Mental dust bunnies always get spooked by midnight magic. I'm not going to miss out on it."

" _You need to rest, Hank. Not every waking minute of your life should be dedicated to your work_."

Christ on toast, this android plays him like a keyboard. Sumo had perked up at the sound of his voice, though only now has decided to use those four legs for their designated purpose. Connor's calm expression lights up at the sight and he coos sweetly over the line, waving his fingers when Sumo sniffs up at the screen. Hank's heart twinges painfully. Why the fuck he constantly entertained throwing away all this casual tenderness, well...no, he actually _can_ say. It's just too good. Too good for _him_. It always has been and, after what he pulled with Nolan, the epic conclusion just writes itself.

He looks away from the screen -- scratching Sumo's head as a decent distraction -- so Connor can't catch the guilt in his eyes.

What would he think, finding out about his and Nolan's Good Samaritan act turned one-night-stand the other night? It makes him sick, as well it _can_ with vodka acting the part of a knight's shield between him and self-destruction right now. Hank's mouth twists as he gets to work ruffling Sumo's ears proper. He'd never cheated on his wife. Knew plenty of guys that cheated on theirs -- some even _friends_ \-- and he'd never once, _once_ , went behind her back like this. Didn't even think about it. He and Connor may not be married, barely official, but...that doesn't matter. That doesn't _matter_.

" _Whatever you're thinking, Hank...it can't be as bad as you're making it out to be._ "

Shit. If murderers and runaways couldn't top the guy, neither could this little routine. Hank leans back up and watches Connor reach over and cup one hand around the screen, blurring the edges. ...Like he's cupping his face, even so far away. The sweetness of the gesture makes the corners of his eyes sting.

"You know, you always say that, but one of these days I might just be right." Hank manages to crack a smile. "Huh?"

" _Perhaps. Until then...be gentle with yourself._ " Connor's eyes hold onto his, not so much as wavering. " _I'm not there to hold you right now._ "

"...Wish you were." It's out before Hank can stop himself. Yeah. Fucking alcohol shows itself when it wants to, fades when it doesn't. Connor's voice lowers to a whisper.

" _So do I._ "

He's more than a little grateful it's just the both of them laying witness to his paper-thin conviction when Connor reaches off-screen, then leans back into view with something in hand. ...A ribbed dildo. Hank raises his eyebrows, which Connor meets with a curved half-smile.

" _I've been thinking about you a lot lately, Hank. Enough that a CyberLife reprogrammer might think I'm skipping._ "

It's a few inches thick. Pretty good size, too, and he briefly wonders with a skip of his heart if it's as long as him.

"About what, my insufferably sardonic sense of humor or my eight-inch blue dick?" Hank chuckles. Connor delicately sets the toy down in his lap.

" _Nine._ " His eyes flick back to the camera. Dark and earnest. " _...Do you have a little free time tonight?_ "

Fuck yeah, he does. Hank nods, giving Sumo a nudge with his ankle and a soft command to go outside. The dog whuffs and pads through his doggy door (which he barely fits through these days). He makes a mental note to get him a treat later.

' _Sorry, buddy. I need to indulge in my worst side a little while longer._ '

When he looks back Connor has risen up, torso having vanished past the screen and centering the camera firmly on his flat stomach and slim hips. Slender fingers reach down to unbuckle his belt and pop it open, following up smoothly with the zipper. The tight pull of the button-up from where it's tucked in suddenly relaxes as he wriggles his hips, tugging up to ease down his pants. Hank's cock twitches at his first peek of skin, a pale strip between the black waistband of his briefs and hem of his shirt.

"You need to rest, too, Connor." He murmurs, as best he can with his throat growing dry and briefs growing painfully tight. Connor bends down to peek _just_ beneath the top of the screen, dimpled smile mischievous. "I know you don't run on solar power yet."

" _This helps me rest._ "

Connor stands up straight again, shifts a little as he unbuttons his shirt, and it soon vanishes out of view to land noiselessly off-screen. He turns just a few inches. Enough that the faint yellow light rounds out the soft slope of his ass.

" _This helps you rest, too._ "

Yeah. Better than a sleep aid. Hank doesn't take his eyes off the screen for a second, reaching down to paw at himself through his jeans with long, indulgent strokes. The webcam suddenly tilts to the floor, goes dark. A second or two later it brightens with new feedback, moving along to show a long stretch of what appear to be blankets: Connor's moved it to the bed. The headrest, by the looks of it. A few moments of virtual silence follow, alongside the softest shuffle of what could be a pair of briefs hitting the floor or his discarded jeans being toed to the side. Then he slides back into view like a specter. Connor is both subtle and honest, in _everything_ he does, and a hot surge of affection punches through the lust.

" _How's the connection, Hank?_ " It's not just the faint feedback static making his voice so hoarse. Hank presses the flat of his palm to his cock and leans close to his speaker.

"Gorgeous."

The android sits back, soft mouth _just_ in view between the edge of the screen and shadow, and spreads both legs wide. He folds one knee up a little, the other splayed out and relaxed. His left hand balances him upright as he starts to stroke himself, from base to tip, squeezing hard enough to ooze a slow, shiny stripe over his knuckles. Hank's eyes roam over the painting-in-motion before him, flicking up to study the way Connor nibbles on his lip, back down to where his curled hand is slowly, almost _elegantly_ , jacking up and down. His volume may be low, but Hank tries to control the shudder of his breath, anyway, because he refuses to miss a single second.

" _...Dreamt of you._ " It's times like this he strongly suspects more than a few second opinions went into the RK800's schematics, because Connor's voice alone is pushing him to the edge. He could read a phonebook and send someone into a coma, much less confessing something like this. " _It's been a lonely few days._ "

"Yeah? What kind of dreams, gorgeous?" He's never been one for pet names, but he has to give him some praise, because he fucking _deserves_ it. Much more than he gets (and he's still suspicious about how nice West Bloomfield really is). Connor's eyes slant to the side, coy as a centerfold.

" _I'd rather send them to you_." That mischievous wink twitches around his mouth again. " _They're much better when-_ "

Then he cuts off with a gasp, low and hoarse, and Hank can't tug down his fly fast enough.

" _Ah. Hah. Sorry_." Connor's voice strains with the urge not to moan. He's heard it a dozen times before, above and beneath him. " _Sometimes it's just-_ "

"I know. I know." He doesn't, because humans are cursed with pain and pleasure from birth, but he says it with conviction, anyway. Hank reaches between his legs and works double-time. "Don't apologize. Love seeing you like this."

He knows the praise hits true, because Connor's pleased laugh is seen more than heard, his stomach undulating with it. They've only done this one other time, the furthest thing possible from planned a month back when Hank had called him to rant. To think, he thought he was too old for surprises. Hank considers weekends aren't _quite_ the personal hell he's made them out to be as he syncs his strokes with Connor's, swapping out the familiar feel of hypersensitive skin and his hand with every tremble, twitch and shiver on the screen.

" _I want to see you, too, Hank._ " His LED goes from scrolling to flickering, hand moving fast enough to loosen up and send a few sloppy drops onto the sheets. " _Please._ "

"Mm. Not yet." It's too tempting to make him beg. "Tell me what you dreamt about first."

" _I dreamt of...somewhere dark and isolated. A back alley behind a brick-and-mortar shop. It was snowing heavily, almost a flurry. You had me pressed up against a wall. My back to your chest._ " Fuck, androids dreamt of far better things than electric sheep. He already likes where this is going. Connor's eyes flicker at just the memory, moving his hand down low to roll the dip of his palm over his balls. " _You were in a mood. I wanted to cheer you up._ "

"You do." Hank breathes, hot and honest. "Don't even have to try."

He's rewarded with another smile, eyes locked with his. The android tugs on his cock again, clearly reaching the point where he can hardly _stop_ from touching himself, and pauses only to pick up the toy. Hank clicks his tongue, grabbing his attention immediately.

"Ah, ah. You're not done." He chuckles huskily, bobbing his chin in a nod. "Go on."

He likes being ordered around. Connor leans back a little, sitting more on his lower back than his ass, and slides two fingers beneath his balls to rub in slow circles. He lifts his head so his face is out of view; teasing him with the classic mystery of the old-fashioned webcam. He's still quiet, tempering the moans, but Hank can see the pressure to vent twitching in his chest as he pushes a finger inside. Then two. Then three. He's already wet, hole tight and shiny as he fucks himself on his hand, rolling his hips into each push and making his cock sway prettily. Deja vu tickles his spine, but it can't win out against alcohol and _this_. Hank bites down on his lip, enjoys the delicious shudder traveling through his thighs and drawing his skin tight.

"Fuck, Connor." He tells him, because he's edging, not _torturing_. "Look at you."

" _I'd rather **you** look at me._" His grin peeks into the frame again, sunk halfway into his bottom lip.

No need to tell him twice. If Connor wanted to quit the Department and take up a job as a full-time porn star the money would practically print itself. He reaches forward and makes a minute adjustment to the camera -- ever the perfectionist, Hank notes with another ripple of fondness -- before leaning back, this time on his knees. The toy is perched beneath him, tip pressed snug beneath his balls. Those lovely hips twitch forward _just_ an inch, the toy bobbing back to catch stiff between his cheeks. His brow crinkles cutely as he looks at Hank through his lashes.

" _Can I..._ "

"Yeah."

He sinks down. So, _so_ slowly, knees sliding a little on the smooth blanket, each ridge a notch flicking past a rim stretched so tight it can barely clench. This time his moan is barely subtle, strangled and mingled with a sharp exhale through his nose. Hank has to chomp down on his tongue to keep from coming prematurely.

" _Christ_ , Connor. If you want bigger, all you have to -- _mm_ \-- do is ask." Hank sighs, resisting the urge to shut his eyes as his cock throbs in his hand. It's only going to get worse, because Connor is peeking at him beneath his bangs again and chewing on his lip with a naked earnestness that sets his blood on fire.

" _You're perfect, Hank. Every last part of you. I just know you-_ " Then his jaw drops and scatters the words, nothing but an exhale, and he bounces messily, chasing the sensation. " _-like to see me stretched out-_ " He leans up the full length of the toy and drops again, mouth hanging open as he false pants. " _-I want what you want-_ " Now his mouth disappears, head tossed back and the sharp bump of his throat rising and falling with a swallow. " _-I want, I just want-_ "

Hank grips the seat of his chair with a white-knuckle grip, completely abandoning the fantasy of in-person intimacy to jerk himself faster as Connor falls victim to his own pleasure. The android's hand slips off his cock to join the other on the bed, now just fucking himself on the toy with bouncing jerks of his hips. When one thrust almost knocks the toy off its base he reaches down to steady it, chin dropping down on his chest and a whimper of need _bleeding_ through the ruined pace. Hank is already tilting his camera toward his stomach when he hears, pitch-perfect:

" _Hank, I need...I need-_ "

"I know what you need." He keeps his voice to a rumble as he lowers his camera down past his waist. Just how Connor likes. "Come on, gorgeous. Come on."

It's still different, being eyed through a screen, but he thinks he could get used to it, with the way Connor's dark eyes grow even darker at what he sees.

" _When I get home...I'm wringing you dry._ "

Hank can't help but chuckle, though the sound is too ragged to be categorized a proper laugh. Polite to lewd, at the drop of a _hat_. Connor's brow furrows and he chews on his lip, mouth twisting with it.

" _You think I'm joking..._ "

"No, no, I know you mean it, gorgeous. You're just too good to me."

" _I want to be good for you._ "

He knows he'll apologize again once he's come -- for not dragging out the show a little longer, for struggling with his dirty talk -- and he's already enjoying telling him otherwise. The toy sinks and slides out of him with wet slaps, bouncing cock flicking spots onto the screen. It's sheer _practice_ that has Hank holding out for a few more seconds. Just a few more so he can see the grand finale: Connor sinking down until the toy nearly vanishes, _shuddering_ like a leaf and coming in sloppy dribbles all over his fist.

Better than alcohol.

Even shivering from his orgasm and wheezing worse than Sumo during the morning walk Hank doesn't miss the slow, bumpy slide of Connor pulling the toy back out. Not the lovely little _pop_ when it comes free, either, nor the way his body instinctively flexes against air. It's not real come he's lapping off his fingers, but it's more than authentic enough to remind him what a dirty old fuck he is. Connor moves his fingers between his cheeks again once they're clean, tracing the rim and leaving it, somehow, even shinier.

" _Miss you_." He rasps, chest still shivering. Prettier than music. " _It's not the same_."

"Well." Hank rolls his shoulders and pops his neck, eyes low-lidded and lazy. "I don't have to go to bed yet."

Connor slowly smiles. His floating, buzzing lull -- a delicious combination of vodka and afterglow -- sharpens again as the android's fake skin retracts. Blurring down the lean angles and long slopes of his body to glow like a snow drift in the dark.

" _Me, neither._ "

\--

"Something interesting out there, Hank?"

"Nah. Just more shitty Detroit rain."

Chris chuckles and goes back to his call. He's so bored it's actually showing on his face, though it's a far better sight than the alternative.

It's been an almost respectable workweek. Not many new cases -- with most of them being petty, like vandalism and altercations outside of bars -- and it's settled a lull over the precinct better suited to a slow day at the pharmacy. Hank has to keep peering outside to make sure the sky isn't falling (a ridiculous habit). He's gone a few days without drinking, either, which he'll _happily_ blame on Connor. Ha. Pretending to be a competent and worthwhile adult for a straight week sometimes feels worthy of the Guinness Book Of World Records. Didn't matter he started feeling this way when he was twenty-five...the feeling never really leaves.

After finishing up a few overdue calls (and shelving the self-hate on him being such a tardy bastard in the first place) he catches up with Chris and Tina over lunch. A first in a _lifetime_ , that. Fowler, for once, isn't blowing his lid over nothing at all. He actually swings by to ask them how they're doing, no strings attached, though they all still breathe a collective sigh of relief when he has to leave not a minute later.

"Well. That's probably a good idea." Hank grunts, checking his beard for crumbs. "Workload ain't gonna finish itself."

"Already?" Tina cries, bagel still unfinished. "I was just starting to feel special."

"Oh, you're _plenty_ special." He scoffs, waving a hand. "I just know if I stay here any longer I won't want to leave."

That, and he's still working out the kinks in his 'social relations program', or whatever androids called it. Regret already sinks his heart when he slumps back in his computer chair and pulls up his schedule. Mere minutes later he gives into pathetic compulsion and glances back over when he catches a glimmer of light. Digital solitaire. Nolan has joined Tina on her break, shifting the cards back and forth in the air between his palms. Hank can't catch what she's saying, but it's clearly something good, because she slaps her forehead and snorts a laugh that rings out like a car horn. Good. That's...good.

Better than the alternative.

Then Fowler's back and telling him Perkins's body has been reported crucified on the railroad tracks just outside of the Central Train Depot. He should've known it wouldn't last too long.

The description makes his spine itch: a spike in each hand and each foot, one right in the middle of his forehead. There need to be _far_ more words in the English language for reactions to a person's death. There's the quiet satisfaction when a politician bites the dust (they really thought money could have them outrunning the reaper). Then there's the reaction that never stops _burning_ in a person. One he knows...better than he'd ever hope to. _This_ one, though, has him unsteady. Unsteady and confused and thinking far too much. It's just...strangely convenient. Two of the biggest pains in his ass, turning up dead as a doornail within the same year.

Hank looks past Fowler back at the lunchroom. Nolan's laughing brightly, pressing his hands together, then opening them up again like a magic trick, revealing bare palms. Tina shakes her head, reaching in a finger to poke around in the air.

He's _far_ from the only one feeling the conflict. Chris talks to him later about it, asking if he's next, and he doesn't know what the fuck to say to that. Considering he'd been at the business end of Markus's revolution and lived to tell the tale, it's a wonder he's been showing up to work at all. The whole thing feels off. Perkins wasn't even close to any part of the population that could be considered vulnerable. A middle-aged white American male? Shit, he was heavily protected at the _best_ of times. Not to mention the guy went through the same self-defense training Hank did and _then_ some. Whoever fucked with him was experienced, careful and possibly harboring a death wish.

' _Last one's about as drab as the common cold...' Hank thinks, sourly. ' _...but who's counting._ '_

Nikolai shows up at the tail end of the day to ask some questions, as well as download information on Perkins's past activity in and around the building. For the first hour, though, he just drifts back and forth between desks. Talking to workers, watching the proceedings. Not unlike a supervisor, if they were actually _wanted_ around, of course. He's as friendly as ever, though his gray eyes remind Hank just as much of bullet shells as a rainy day. When Connor enters the lobby he doesn't greet a soul, as rigid as the first day he was ushered in.

"You would have been the ultimate example. Esteemed in history as the last one standing." Nikolai's voice dips with sympathy, low enough to suggest this conversation isn't for everyone's ears. Connor's, on the other hand, hardly changes at all.

"Individuality might be a touch overrated." A pause. "If you'll excuse me."

Hank firmly keeps his eyes on the console. That's...an interesting thing for the presumed prototype of the RK900 to mention. Then again...maybe not. Maybe not even a little bit. It doesn't take long for him to be the next one questioned.

"Good evening, Lieutenant."

"Evening."

Nikolai considers the mug stains and empty cups, then leans against the very edge of his desk, folding both arms over his long legs. Reminds him a little of Connor, back when they were both grousing about all the red tape keeping them from doing the right thing; slumping on his desk had been such an endearing shift from the uptight android freshly assigned from CyberLife. At the thought Hank glances around for him, but he's nowhere to be found. ...Looks the fond memory will be a little one-sided. He clears his throat and starts to shuffle his trash together, mentally slapping himself for not sprucing up.

"Oh, there's no need for that. I understand you're a busy man." Nikolai says, eyes curving. Hank absolutely doesn't want to start small-talk about _yet_ another thing he can't stand about himself, so turns to something a little easier to handle: death.

"Hey, uh. I'm sorry about...Perkins." He coughs again, to at least swallow back the bitterness. "That's a pretty gruesome thing to come to work to."

"A difficult man, but one wholly devoted to his field. The FBI is a lesser place without his expertise." Nikolai responds, smooth as butter. "I have been eluded before, but I assure you, this case will be properly closed."

Hank slowly nods. Fuck if _that_ wasn't a threat's threat.

"Speaking of which. I wanted to ask...have you noticed any out-of-place details at the precinct?"

"I'm...not sure I follow." CyberLife's most advanced android to date asking the nearest human schmuck feels like a demi-god asking a mortal follower for cooking advice. "What are you looking for, exactly?"

"Human intuition. It's excessively subtle, described by some as outright inefficient, and yet I'm finding myself in need of it by the bundle." Nikolai's affect is smoother than vodka. "I've been told by nearly everyone here you have a lot to offer. Even if I _hadn't_ been clued in, well...I'm rather good at piecing together evidence."

His used and abused brain spits out a sudden jumble of images. Perkins making a few too many enemies in his line of work. Detroit more dangerous than it's ever been after a revolution that may very well never _stop_. Nolan's stare trailing after an FBI agent's back...a surface sheen of attentiveness layered over something darker. The truth -- or _a_ truth -- prickles the hairs on his arms.

"Not...particularly, no." He tries a chuckle, though it hardly comes out as more than a breath. "It's been a little crazy for a while. Picking out what's good crazy and bad crazy is just...what I'm trying to do on-the-clock."

Nikolai leans back a little, chin raised and spreading the lobby's fluorescent light down the slender dip of his throat. He looks him up and down, as slow as morning traffic.

"...I understand you don't trust me." He says, somehow completely civil despite all but declaring he doesn't believe a damn thing he's saying. "Why don't I ask again later this week, when you've thought it over."

Hank's temper ripples. That's code for more passive-aggressive browbeating until the desired answer's found. The android reaches over to rest a hand on his arm, alarmingly gentle, and the frustration flickers down to something much more confusing.

"In the meantime...take care of yourself." Nikolai smiles appreciatively, wide enough to make his eyes glitter. "All right?"

Hank slowly nods.

"Right. ...You, too."

He watches Nikolai's silky stride through the lobby's glass until he vanishes into the insufferable brightness outside. A soft _click_ of a cup on his desk makes his skin pop out in a fresh wave of goosebumps. Instead of brown eyes and a dimple, though, he looks up at Tina's round, worried face.

"There is a suspicious lack of cups in the lunchroom's trash bin. Figured you might be low."

"Thanks."

Nolan glides past them talking a mile-a-minute with Chris. He seems otherwise unaffected by the morbidity of the news, or the last several days, really. He's been on a permanent cloud nine since they fucked, stamped-on smile just a little _too_ cheeky. It's gotten to the point point a third of any conversations involving him this week double-back to who the guy's dating, because what else _could_ it be? Damn it all.

"Wish we had more like him working here. Chris has been going home earlier, so I'm stuck having to pretend I give a shit about what Jesse thinks on patrol, which is only ever sports or cars. I don't know a _thing_ about sports or cars." Tina is saying, rubbing at her baggy eyes. Woman really needed to learn the art of a good nap. "Meanwhile Nolan can make a conversation about _salad_ interesting." She squints at Hank's expression. "I mean, I know about salad, who doesn't. It's a metaphor."

Hank holds up his hands in surrender. She's one of those rare types that can be classified as an introverted extrovert. A quiet person's loud person. A big reason she's out on the field so often is because people actually _like_ talking to her; Nolan's speech about morale couldn't have revolved around a more decent candidate. She knew when to step forward and knew when to shut up, which played no small part in him wondering how in the hell she and Reed ever became friends. Ha. Detroit needed to take every shred of goodness it could get.

"Good to see Connor back. He's been out a _lot_ the past two months. Guess the Department doesn't hold that much appeal even for detective androids." She winces. "...Is that rude? Don't tell him I said that."

Hank sips his coffee, only half-listening as he watches Connor and Nolan talk wirelessly, expressions subtle and arresting as they always are. When Nolan turns to wave at someone beyond the glass Connor catches his eye over his shoulder, putting on a tender smile just for him. Hank smiles back over the rim of his cup. As the saying goes: absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Normally after work they sit and just...talk. Nothing work-related, nothing news-related. They're getting to the point where they _have_ a normal, small as it is. At first it was easy to feel like any android's company was humoring him. Humoring the mopey crap he says, humoring all the times he has to eat and shit and be a messy, gross human with unavoidable needs. Then it was feeling humored for being... _him_. Now that stuff's faded mostly into background noise, stuff he can overlook while he's in the thick of it.

Makes it all the rougher that the guilt comes back with a vengeance. Right when it's getting good. Hank wonders how much he could have prepared at work hours ago when Connor's head dips low with a promise, one hand steadying himself on the couch cushion's edge.

"Connor, hey. Sorry, I just..." He's as gentle as possible when he presses a hand to his shoulder. "Sorry."

He knows he's fucked up when he's turning down a blowjob. Connor blinks up at him, then lays his cheek on his thigh, curling his legs beneath him and folding his hands in his lap. Accepting and adorable. That's just what he needs to punch out his next words.

"...Why do you keep coming back to me?"

Lord, they've had this stupid conversation before. Connor could just open his mouth and spit out a perfect recording of the last eight times he's asked this fucking question _and_ responded with the inevitable answer.

"Because I want to, Hank."

He would've rather he punched him.

"I'm not trying to...replace you, Connor."

He's not. He's not, he's _not_ , but the mantra is beaten down, beaten bloody and sputtering.

He could repeat this a thousand times until it's the only two words he can speak and he'd _still_ doubt himself. For good damn reason. He fucked Nolan senseless in a filthy bathroom stall, acted out a fantasy of being desirable, irresistable, lovable, and he was forever wretched for it. Tearing himself apart is easier than confessing to a hundred sins, much less walking through the mundanities of daily life: crying into a shoulder, venting in front of the television, shivering through night sweats and signing up for counseling and the fights. He wants to start a fight. Prove himself a waste of time.

If he gets Connor to yell at him, he'll prove he wasn't worth it all along. He _can't_ get Connor to yell at him...because he wants Connor to want him. Connor does, even his crap brain can't deny it, he _always_ does, and he doesn't know what the fuck to do about it.

"Hank..."

Supercomputer or just familiar with his bullshit. Hank _still_ thinks he answers too quickly, even as he traces a fingertip over the inseam of his jeans and looks more thoughtful than anything.

"...I don't think that."

"Look, would you just knock it off with that perfectly understanding act?" He hits his head back against the chair backing, shifting his leg to disrupt that too-comforting feeling of his hand. "It's not logical, how I...look at you both, treat _him_. It's not all _right_."

It's all so stupidly vague. He has so much to confess and he can't even pick a place to start.

"You said he's _not_ me. That we couldn't be more _different_." Connor drops his hand and sits up, fixing him with a sharp look. "What changed, Hank?"

Maybe nothing. Maybe just him. Maybe fucking _nothing_. Hank tries to hold onto his stare and fails miserably.

"...I like you, Hank. I care for you. You're the first member of my family and someone I hope to know for as long as possible. If this helps you, helps him..." He pauses. "...then I don't see an issue."

Hank blinks and looks down at him again.

"What do you mean...'this'?"

Connor's expression goes from shrewd to a little blank. Kind of like when he's downloading something (though his LED hasn't changed whatsoever). He looks past him for a second, eyes not moving around whatsoever, then meets his gaze again. He remains nestled against his leg, reaching up to run a slow hand on the other.

"...I know you watch porn when I'm gone." It hits like a slug to the gut. "I also know you have eyes for others."

A strike of metal on hot iron, right in his stomach to send sparks ricocheting throughout his chest. This is it. _This_ is the part where Connor rightfully rakes him over the coals and airs out all his dirty laundry, one immature fuck-up and moment of weakness at a time. The long weeks of drinking too much and beating himself up at every available opportunity was a warm-up, at best. Hank swallows hard and stares him down. Waits for it. _Hopes_ for it.

...Then the professional veneer peels away. Connor's eyes turn misty, glittering up at him like all his worst days, and Hank is stunned still.

"Just tell me this...do you still want me around?"

He couldn't look away in time, even if he had the mind to do it. The android can already see the answer's yes _and_ no, in the damning hitch of his false breath. Oh, he wishes he could explain. He...he doesn't have enough years on his shit lifespan to go _through_ it all. All the aching, burning, _screaming_ reasons _why_.

"...Of course I do." Hank reaches down and holds his arms out to him. "Come here."

Hank kisses him overlong, until he's probably sick and tired of it, caught in the limbo of wanting to renege his decision _and_ stubbornly pushing through so he doesn't embarrass himself further. Maybe Connor will move in with him one of these months. A very, _very_ distant January where he didn't go limp during a makeout session to instead get head from his insecurities. So distant Connor would just...be dating a corpse. God, here they come. The cycle of thoughts about death and self-loathing that felt like a tar pit. They never quit. They never stop.

"Hank-" Connor pulls back, LED _now_ turning yellow, and his eyes- "Just talk to me, what's hurting-"

"Don't. It's _fine_. I'm fine. I'm always fucked up, that'll never change-"

" _It's the lying that hurts the most._ "

For the second time he's completely blindsided. His tone feels like a belt on his back. Hank licks at his sore lips, leaning away to better stare at Connor's raw, hurting, angry face.

"I always know when you're lying. Every twitch you take for granted, each delay and off-key breath is like an _explosion_ to me."

For the next few hours he tries to figure out what hurts more. His whole existence, or the way Connor takes care to pet Sumo's ears before leaving out his front door.

That night he does all the things he shouldn't. He drinks. He stares at the gun in the kitchen drawer for far too long. He looks up android porn. Not the kind that recreated human fetishes with machines instead of humans. Not the kind that threw in a little uncanny valley for 'flavor', either. _Android_ porn: by androids, for androids.

The worst nooks and crannies of his brain have him in a chokehold, throttling out his insecurties and leaking them out in the form of obsessive browsing and an uncomfortable stirring low in his gut. At first he's not even sure what tags to look for. Virtual stimulation. Synchronization. It all sounds vague enough and tech-y enough to be interesting, but he knows a rabbit hole when he sees one. Still. He skims for minutes, pretends to himself not to be overly invested glancing at thumbnails intentionally blurred to curry impulsive clicks. Then he gets to parts swapping. Blue bloodplay. Wireplay.

He's not sure if Connor would ever be into this. If he himself was limiting the relationship by virtue of being a human; bound by biology, boring taste or both. It's not the sight of two models without their shells intertwined or even one eating out another's stomach, but the sight of an android's face splattered with thirium in a morbid cum shot that kills his mood. Hank shuts off his computer, feeds Sumo later than he should've and goes to bed.

_"Step back, Connor...and I'll spare him."_

No afterglow to fall asleep to. No warm, soft, humming body next to him. Just his old dog at the foot of the bed snoring because he's afraid of being fully alone and the echoes of the past, screaming at him until one of them eventually gives up.

_Near-death experiences never change. The same tumble of thoughts jumble into the same, screaming nonsense as he stares through the sea of white and blue at Connor. Everything's the same, nothing's the same. He should've known, fessed up to the warning signs, and thanks to that slip-up he's going to die with a bullet in his head and his regret all over the floor. He's felt helpless before, plenty of times, but...never like this. Not where he couldn't, at the very least, get to himself first. He's not going to show Connor that, though. The last thing Connor sees from him shouldn't be a pathetic, tired platitude._

" _Don't listen to him. Everything this fucker says is a **lie**._"

Hank curls into the pillow, then folds it over his head in an attempt to drown it out.

_"I have access to your memory. I know you've developed some kind of attachment to him. Are you really ready to let him die?" He has the same crow's feet when he smiles. None of the sweetness. "After all you've been through?"_

_...Fuck. There isn't a shred of doubt in the clone's voice. He can hardly believe his ears, even though a part of him has always had suspicions about Connor's feelings. Some sort of...attachment. Some sort of attachment, to him, of **all** people, and he was going to die without knowing what kind it even is. There's no way he can hide the regret on his face now. It's consuming him more than the fear of death, from what little he remembers of the concept._

He has to pretend. He has to pretend he's nailed to the mattress by his hands and feet so he can't slip out the door and pull open the cabinet for three and a half fingers at two in the morning. Pretend his blood is lead and he's got no higher thoughts to devote to a blue hole in Connor's forehead, limp on a shiny floor as his other looks on. No thoughts, no questions, nothing to wonder and wander until the inevitable drop.

_He only knows he's still gripping the handle of his pistol by sight, his fingers well beyond the point of numb. The clone's face is streaked shiny with tears, hair poking through the gaps in his fingers, screaming in a way he's never heard from Connor or anyone._

' _Liar! Liar! You're **lying!**_ ''

\--

"They're _androids_ , Hank."

"The _fuck_ does that mean, Fowler? Huh? Go on, the fuck does that _mean?_ "

Hank remembers the exact day, time and what he was wearing when he realized he might have a mental issue. Or five.

It's when he got good news that, instead of being cheered up or stunned silly, made him cry. It'd been a measly thing, in hindsight: he'd gotten a medical bill forgiven after a trip to the emergency room for a broken leg. Being working-class had a way of making the mundane unbearable. What could've set him back three thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred, ended up vanishing into thin fucking air. He remembers sitting at home, propped up like an ugly Christmas ornament and staring at his cast in a gaussian blur. Crying not tears of joy, but tears of _anguish_. The kind of blubbering, slobbering tears only fit for a pillow or a funeral.

Eight years ago he'd managed to parse out meaning in-between all the noise: that he thought someone else deserved that good news more than he _ever_ did, and he was a rotten son-of-a-bitch for being alive to win the good luck lottery.

Hadn't been the first time it happened, but it sure as _fuck_ had been the sorriest.

Things are such shit even good news isn't good news, though he's working his brain overtime to make the most of it for other peoples' sake. The Dollmaker has gotten sloppy. Even better, they have a lead. They finally have a fucking _lead_. For once Hank's not the one screwing something the fuck up. Connor has been working overtime, too, pushing even his impressive limits. He's no doubt taking advantage of the lack of mismatched victims to catch up on everything else the precinct needs to be a functioning unit, which is making _this_ stubborn, brickhead of a man all the more infuriating to listen to.

"It _means_ they're still not going to be as high up as humans are. It doesn't matter if they're alive, _human_ communities and _human_ families have been our responsibility for far longer and we have to hold up to that."

"Did you just miss the goddamn memo? We're not the only ones around anymore. Haven't been for a _while_."

"They're not even _dead_ , Hank! Meanwhile I've got two families with three members lost between them and a missing child report that needs eyes, _now_. Compassion's one thing, but where the hell have your priorities gone?"

God, it's hard to remember a day when Fowler was something _other_ than a canker sore in his asscheek, but he's been here long enough to know the truth and it's the only thing that's keeping him from slamming a middle finger right in his face. He could be sympathetic about it all, sure. It can't be an easy position for Fowler to take, not when he holds so much respect for Connor and Nolan, much less a department that's barely holding together at the seams. It _still_ smacks of the whole ' _good ones_ ' rhetoric. That androids are only worth looking out for if they weren't conveniently out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Fucking hell.

"If we don't start _now_ , then when will we? _Huh?_ "

"You got the message, didn't you? Go do your future Robin Hood act, because I know you're goddamn going to, and cut me some _fucking_ slack for once!" Fowler hollers at his back. "Goodness knows I never fail to stick my neck out for you, but you're all too quick to toss me under the bus!"

Hank entertains graduating that middle finger to two as he slumps on his chair and glares at his sty of a desk. A light prickle to his skin starts up. Softer than rainfall. Hank looks up to see Nolan staring down at him, the light of his LED almost as steady as his expression.

"...Are you all right, Hank?"

There's no need to ask. The guy clearly heard (or lip-read) plenty, judging by his meticulously bland tone of voice. Can't be easy hearing just how valuable he is or _isn't_ depending on the time of day.

"I'm fine. Pissed, but fine. Fowler, he's..." Hank heaves a sigh and grinds fingertips into the bridge of his nose. "...taking his sweet _goddamn_ time catching up."

His open, sympathetic expression flickers. He can almost _feel_ the change, the first taste of something heady at the rim of a glass.

"Well..." Nolan glances over his shoulder at Fowler's office, then turns back with an eyebrow raised. "...It makes me all the more grateful for people like you."

It's the last thing he should've said.

"Why do you... _do_ all this, Nolan?" Hank chuckles, without a drop of mirth, and stares at his wrinkled, dry knuckles. "Surely your programming didn't come with an infinite patience protocol."

"It did, actually." Nolan sits on the very edge of the desk, folding his arms over his legs with a more relaxed expression. "Though with a somewhat different title."

Hank tries a laugh, but it echoes hollow. It's not deja vu he's feeling at this point. No, it's a steady reminder of the murder he committed with his own two _hands_.

"You'd be surprised all the back-ups I have for human unpredictability." Nolan swings his feet idly. "Though perhaps not, with your resume."

Yeah. That's what this is. He's just haunted. Haunted by that single moment of self-defense on one of a hundred floors in Detroit's tallest building, a moment that later rose from the dead, put on a button-up and twirled a ballpoint pen. Nolan remembered something. He _had_ to remember enough, at least, to want to be around him in a way too doting and familiar to be natural. Maybe...it was a strange instinct churning around in his jumbled code, cracked photos with no context that still left an impact. Does he understand why he feels the way he does? Does he even _care?_

He couldn't blame him if he didn't. It feels good, to be so sure of something. Doesn't matter what it is. His tongue feels dry enough to chew through. He has to clear his throat several times before he can speak.

"What if...what if I've done some pretty bad things, Nolan?"

The android has taken out his pen, not flipping it but rolling it between both forefingers, delicate as someone would hold a flower stem.

"Well, you work in a judicial system that, at its best, is supremely corrupt and regularly abuses its power. Individual acts are nearly meaningless against a consistent pattern."

"Right." He huffs. "I meant on a more...personal scale."

For a few moments there's nothing but the sound of footfall and mundane muttering in the lobby. Nolan's stewing on it, face vacant with thought. After a minute or so he leans into a crouch, slinging his elbows over his knees in a way that's both casual and, somehow, affirming. He slowly tilts his head, furrowed brows crinkling his forehead.

"Whatever you need to say...I'm all ears."

Against his better judgement he looks past that sympathetic mouth and long nose...right between his brows and hairline. At the perfect shot only someone who spent too many years trying to prop up a rotting house could pull off. Nolan's eyes narrow, an automatic way to show he's analyzing him to pieces. Hank curses himself. ...Fuck. He shouldn't have looked. He shouldn't have _looked_.

"Hank..." The hurt on his face is so fresh it's as if he flayed him alive, then and there. "Is it something I did?"

Yes and no. Yes and no. Yes and _no_. Hank's heart twists with a palpitation, the exact sort of adrenaline spike that comes with doing something risky, and he knows Nolan catches it by the way his brows pop up again. His gaze is searching. Looking for a place to start, perhaps not even knowing it started months back, with a familiar smile and a blood-chilling threat.

"Lieutenant." He lowers his voice, low enough for only him to hear. "Did...I go too far that night?"

Which night? The night where they fucked at the bus station or the night where he threatened to kill someone he loved with a railroad spike?

"For the record...I had a good time." The concern softens, that glint Hank found trapped between shitty fluorescent lighting and messy bangs flickering beneath the surface. "A wonderful time, even."

So did he. For all that it lasted. That's the thing with him...he never _lasts_.

"If you ever wanted to do something like that again... _sans_ the potential mugging victim, of course...I'm all for it."

The guy is leaning forward now, looking completely charmed -- and _charming_ \-- and all he can think is how badly he wants to apologize. If he tells him he's sorry, though...he could jog something in there better left dead. If he _doesn't_...he'll never forgive himself.

"I would love to know your thoughts, Hank. I just...need you to talk to me." Nolan slips the pen into his pants pocket, then reaches out a hand, reaching down to brush fingertips against his knee-

"Hank?"

-and he stiffens and pulls back swiftly, straightening up and assuming his previous pose. Connor is staring at them, head tilted to one side and LED a blinking yellow.

"...An unoccupied house has been reported by a neighbor to be relevant to our case. Have you been briefed yet?"

Nolan's LED turns yellow. He turns to Hank, face open with a reasonable amount of surprise. This is one stroke of good luck he isn't going to turn down.

"...I'm going." He stands up, quashing the icy chill in his gut. "Right now." When there's only one echo of feet behind him he turns and frowns. "You coming?"

Nolan is by his side. Connor, on the other hand, is still by the desk. Standing there and...hesitating. He has no idea why. They'd decided breaking the rules was a necessary part of _finally_ doing some damn _good_ , all the way back when he'd helped him sneak into the evidence room to get to the bottom of it all. His expression is faint, too subtle to figure out. They don't have time.

"...Connor?"

He knows he has no right to ask him to stay by his side. Not when he went behind his back with his...his clone.

"I'm fine." He reaches up to adjust his tie. "...Lead the way, Hank."

\--

His mind is a freezing engine being kicked into overdrive. Sputtering with each jostle, revving powerfully one second and _completely_ flatlining the next.

Hobbling back and forth from barely any evidence to a sudden stroke of good luck. It's small wonder his head can't keep up. Things that sounded too good to be true usually _were_ , but the report he'd read was too specific to ignite even his gut feeling. The androids that have turned up have been...just that. Turning _up_ , out of _nowhere_ , one or two in a garbage bin and one in a dumpster and one behind someone's car. Finding an actual place of operation for their killer-not-killer should feel like winning the lottery. Hell, it is. Hank's skin flinches from the cold as he steps out of his car, blinking back a droplet that hits his eye.

He's double enough times not to believe the illusion.

The little house on 18th is hidden in plain sight. The report stated it's been defunct for at least three months and, judging by the state of the lawn and fence, hasn't been occupied even by squatters. A classic and unpredictable location, just like the rest of this disturbing fuck's resume. Hank turns on his gun's flashlight and glances over one shoulder at the twin shadows emerging from either door of his car, temples blinking fitfully through the weak shower. The creeping sensation of familiarity is so oppressive it could stop him from breathing outright. Nolan pauses to stare up at the sky. Connor, on the other hand, is watching the house.

Couldn't be more different.

That same feeling stretches to the crime scene, despite pretty much everything else clashing. This isn't the cluster of nosy neighbors, beat cops and service androids that swarmed Carlos Ortiz's house. No cars cluttering up the road. There's only a human couple across the street with their phones out, _just_ far enough to be little more than a shadow and a glow, and Tina standing by the yellow tape.

"Hey. Where's Chris?" Hank grunts as he walks up to the fence. She's shivering visibly as she bobs her head down the road.

"On his way, actually. Had to swing by the house first." She scrubs her hands together. "This wasn't considered an...emergency."

"Yeah. ...No doubt." He mutters. "You been inside?"

"No. Not sure I want to, to be honest." Huh. He's never known her to be squeamish. Then- "Do you think...it's the same person who killed Gavin?"

_Fucking hell. Too many gut reactions and not nearly enough time in the night to sort through them. His scalp has grown tight with unease. ...What the fuck is he **holding?** It's metal, that much is for sure, but he can only just make out the shape in the foyer's shadow._

_"Please move aside, Hank." ...It's a nail. He's pointing at Connor with a huge, rusty **nail**. "Don't worry. I won't sully the floorboards."_

"...You've worked in the Department for nearly four years, Tina. You know it's too dissimilar."

"...I don't know. Just a funny feeling." She rubs rainwater out of her eyes with her sleeve, then frowns when she realizes she just made it worse. "Guess that's why I'm not a detective." He catches the smallest of smiles on her face in the bad light. "Hey, Noles. Looking sharp."

"Thank you. Keep an eye out for us, if you will. We'll handle the rest from here." Nolan gives her shoulder a firm squeeze. "Stay warm."

"Ha. No promises."

Connor moves through the tape and walks up the front steps, somber as ice.

They don't have to venture into a filthy basement or cramped attic this time. Thank something for small somethings. It's nothing more grandiose than kicking down the door and shedding his cone of light on the vacant, filthy hovel that passes for a living room and box kitchen. Hank swerves it from side-to-side, breathing carefully through his nose to keep from misting his vision. There's no furniture, save for a chair stuffed in the corner, and, aside from some dust, it's otherwise clean. ...Clean from _debris_ , anyway: a dozen and a half androids are propped against the walls, a few scattered along the floor. It's hard to tell with just his flashlight the state of those with their fake skin deactivated, but the others...

The _others_.

Children's arms on adult bodies. Clashing skintones too extreme to be passed off for false summer tans. The wrong heads on the wrong shoulders on the wrong torsos. The Dollmaker's name couldn't be clearer than it is now. Nolan moves with near-silent steps, temple shifting from yellow to blue as he records what he sees. All Hank can do is think about just how incompetent he is, that this all happened so close to home.

"...Fucking _bastard_." He whispers, staring at a crime scene that's both familiar and completely, wholly different than any he's seen before. " _God_."

Connor is kneeling in the corner, tilting his head and inspecting an android's (hairless) head closely. Judging by the strong jawline it might be an LM100. Then again, it might be a dozen others. Hank tries not to frown as he watches; he's been bizarrely quiet, ever since they left the precinct, and he can't put his finger on _why_. His stomach sinks. ...No. He knows why. After the shitshow at his place, on top of _this_ , there's no reason he should feel particularly chatty.

"...Connor." He lowers his light so he's not flashing it in his eyes. "You okay?"

Hank studies his expression and his LED to catch something. Anything. Both are still.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"What's your prognosis on all this? Think any of these androids can be fixed?" Hank presses, as much to start solving the situation as to cut into the painful silence growing thicker. "Like they fixed..."

His gaze drifts over to where Nolan's standing with his arms crossed. Head cocked at a quaint angle, like a designer appreciating the interior decorating.

"Well, that depends. We're only seeing surface damage and incompatible parts. It's possible their software has been tampered with." He holds out a hand and pulls the skin back. "We _could_ interface with them..."

"That's not recommended." Connor starts, sharp enough to make Hank jerk back around. His voice is tighter than he's heard in a while. "There's a distinct possibility they've sustained enough damage to make a direct interface potentially hazardous-"

"Our model is _more_ than equipped to handle any viruses or corruption encountered." Nolan counters, swiftly. The other android's shoulders twitch with something Hank can't put to words.

"Our model is not _flawless._ "

"Be that as it may. The decision doesn't ultimately rest with us."

In one smooth, synchronized motion they both turn to face him. Hank swallows tightly and looks back at the morbid display propped, leaning, and slumped in every corner. He doesn't want to favor one over the other. It's hard to rack his brain into shape in this horrid place. His years of experience and damned life isn't numbing him at all right now. The walls are too close. Even the smell -- or lack thereof -- is rubbing raw. He wants to get out, but he can't leave until he has something more with him than bodies.

"...Do it. We _need_ to get to the bottom of this." He reaches over and holds Connor's shoulder. "But if something funny happens, stop. This isn't worth hurting yourself over. Got it?"

The double-meaning will have to wait. Connor nods slowly, eyes still on the android in front of him.

"...Got it."

The strangeness of his tone is par for the course. They've been chipping away at this damn case for weeks and all _this_...it must be a lot, for a new deviant. Connor reaches out and takes the android's arm (abnormally thin on its muscular torso). Nolan goes to the opposite end of the room to what looks like an AX400 with a mismatched jaw. Hank takes a step back (a little closer to the door, his subconscious whispers) and watches as they both pull back their fake skin for an interface. He holsters his gun -- he doesn't trust the way his hands are shaking -- and watches.

The rain outside starts to kick up. It barely beats back the silence. For a few cold, quiet seconds there's little other than the drip of condensation and foggy thrum of his thoughts. Then the android Connor's touching opens its mouth...and starts to speak.

" _Could've been-could've been-could've been..._ "

"That's..." He attempts a chuckle, one that clicks oddly. "...odd." He glances sideways. "...Connor?"

The android's eyes are closed and his head is bowed, face still as a frozen lake. The only clue as to what he's thinking is the blinking-then-spinning flash of his LED. Still yellow.

" _You weren't supposed to exist._ " The LM100's voice is soft, undercut with static. " _There was only supposed to be one. You ruined everything. You ruined everything. You ruined everything. You ruined everything. You ruined-_ "

Are these...old recordings? He's not stupid, they're still not _on_ , technically, but their mouths are moving and voices are coming out like hair from a drain. Yanked out and _straining_.

" _He was mine first. He was mine first. He was mine first._ " He's starting to talk faster, not sounding like someone stumbling through their words and instead like a recording being sped up unnaturally, garbled and shrill- " _He was mine first he was mine first he was mine first he was mine first he was mine first-_ "

The arm not held fast by Connor lifts up into the air, as if pulled by a string, and reaches out to him. Palm upward like a husband helping a wife over a puddle.

" _Whateveryouwantwhateveryouwantwhateveryouwant-_ "

Before he realizes what he's doing Hank is pulling out his pistol and pointing it with shivering hands. He whirls around when another voice fills the room, feminine and sweet. Nolan is just as still as Connor -- just as expressionless, just as motionless -- and the AX400 is the only one watching.

" _You d-d-decided wrong. You m-m-made it worse. He'll never look at you like that again, never look at you like he did me-_ "

His heart speeds up sickly. ...He needs to record this. He needs to call Tina in. He needs to do _something_ , and he can't.

" _I'm the one who-I'm the one who-I'm the one who-_ " Her gaze is hauntingly familiar- " _I'm the one who-I'm the one who-I'm the one who-_ "

Hank cocks his gun, naked fear transforming into a phantom that takes his body for its own. He aims right at her stuttering, glitching mouth.

" _For him. That's all? For him. That's all? For him. That's all? For him. That's all?_ "

Where the fuck is Tina? Can't she _hear this?_ Hank wants to grip his ears. Drown it out.

" _I deserve him too I deserve him too I deserve him too it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair i t ' s n o t f a i r -_ "

"Turn it off." Hank whispers, then, much louder, "Turn it _off!_ "

Connor and Nolan's eyes snap open. The lights go back to blue. The AX400 abruptly quiets, jaw slackening partway on a syllable. The LM100 follows suit, eyes drifting into low, dead slits. The house is suddenly, completely silent, though the blood pounding in his ears is as dense as a roar. He pushes his gun back into its holster, fumbling several times before it settles in properly, and storms out the door. He only knows they follow by the crunch of wet grass behind him.

Hank slides hands over his face, drags them over his hair. Tries to breathe some sense back into his brain. Tina is over by her car, muttering an update into her two-way. Connor and Nolan haven't moved past the fence. They're standing on the walkway, staring at each other in dead silence. His brain, still hyped on a danger with no name, snatches him by the jaw and yanks him back to that glimpse he caught at the precinct's lunchroom. Something almost mundane, _almost_ , and right now adrenaline is bunching up like a clog between the question and the answer.

Then Nolan lunges.

" _Nolan!_ "

They both hit the ground _hard_...then leap back up in a flash, barely more than two shadows in the slippery front lawn. Their movements are perfect, more suited to an action film than a messy brawl. One punch is deflected, a kick is dodged, a head dips out of the way of a right hook. It's almost a _dance_. Slow, surreal second after slow, surreal second drifts by as he watches, flexing his fingers and trying to figure out the pattern so he can step in.

"Hank?" Tina's voice drifts in strangely. He hardly recognizes it. "Hank, what's wrong? What's going on?"

Her flashlight passes over the lawn in a sharp sweep, right when the fight changes. A sharp _crack_ splits the air. Connor's head whips to the right. White blooms across his cheek, LED flashing to yellow, and all he can catch is a responding blur before Nolan is stumbling back and hitting the fence. The wood creaks sharply from his weight. There are no typical insults being slung, not even threats. Androids thought different, _fought_ different, and Nolan uses the fence as a launching pad to jump right at his opponent again. Just like-

"What the _fuck_ are you two doing?" Hank screams, crazy fever mercifully breaking and allowing him to run over and grab one of them by the shoulder. "Have you gone fucking _crazy?!_ "

The RK800 may be slender, but it's deceptive as a stage trick. No matter how hard he tugs he can't get Connor (or is it Nolan?) _off_ , like trying to pull apart iron. The one pinned down is twisting fruitlessly, LED a frantic, blinking red. Tina's flashlight falls on his face and neck, revealing two hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing with crushing force. A car door slams down the street.

"Hank?" He hears Chris call. He's jogging over, one hand on his waist. "Hank, what's going on?"

"I don't fucking know!" Hank calls back. "I can't-!"

_"It's time to decide what matters most."_

" _Hold it!_ "

Just like a film...it's as if someone hit the pause button. Both androids stop moving and go still. Still curled against each other in their morbid posture. Connor and Nolan slowly lean into upright positions -- one sitting, one kneeling -- with temples cycling from red to yellow to blue. Perfectly in-sync.

"...Are you okay, Hank?"

"...Are you okay, Hank?"

Hank stumbles back to his feet, one hand out and the other gripping his pistol handle. They stare at him passively. As if they weren't just trying to-

"Get back. Stop. I'm fine. Just...just _get back_ , give me some fucking _space_."

He turns and nearly bumps right into Tina and Chris's confused faces; the former is pale, even with little more than flashlights to show her face, and Chris is pulling out his two-way with visible hesitance.

"Hank, what the _hell_ just happened? Why were they fighting?"

"Yeah, are you all right-"

" _I'm fine._ "

It can't take more than a few seconds to push open the gate, walk across the street and get into his car. It feels like a year.

"I just need some space."

\--

Does Detroit ever stop raining?

He could probably cram two fingers into the heavy gray sheet and pull it from one side to the other like a curtain. What a miserable fucking city. Greasy summer showers that turn the air so humid it can be cut with a knife. Brutal hail that wrecks cars and turns the road into an icy nightmare. Windy springs and windy autumns, it's one shitty excuse for a cloud after another, and the only thing that keeps Hank from cursing the day are the night plans he's clutched in one fist all week. To think, he still can't imagine ever calling any other place on this misbegotten planet home.

It's been forever and a day since he bothered to show up at _other_ people's homes. Heh, they don't even show up to _his_. It's too much work, cleaning himself up into some slapdash bare minimum of a functioning human being, figuring out what to do with all the dog hair and beer cans with a time limit. Nikolai is immaculate, of course. His outfit hugs his figure, recently ironed, and his luxury condominium wouldn't look out of place in a television drama. _Somehow_ he still finds it in him to smile at the sight of him. Even as the rain pours and Hank's sloppy hair is stuck flat to his skull.

Those gray eyes never change.

"Hank." That heavy, deep voice makes _his_ sound like a milquetoast nerd trying to break out of a locker. "You're okay."

Whatever shred of amicability he scrounged up between his bathroom mirror and the several blocks to Merchant Row vanishes into thin air. ...Okay? What does he mean, he's _okay_ -

-and there's no time to ponder, not when he's pulling him into a kiss that could _also_ fit perfectly into a weekly timeslot. Both hands cup his grizzled face like they once exchanged vows, tongue working deep and so, so slow. Androids don't really smell like much, unless they buy simulants, but this one has made him dinner and smells like the grill. It's robust, smoky and a little spicy. Somehow ill-fitting and utterly perfect.

"Hank." He whispers again, tips of his teeth burning up his neck to scrape his beard as he tugs him into the foyer. "How I've missed you."

The android never stops saying his name.

He doesn't understand Nikolai, most times. It makes the frenzy of tugged clothes and desperate kissing feel all the more special. This... _this_ , he gets. For such a composed man he bites hard, pushes him harder, and all of Hank's height and weight dwindles to nothing in the living room's low light. It's been so long since he's been manhandled -- much less this elegantly -- that he gives in sooner rather than later, watching with pleasure as Nikolai tugs him to the floor and does what he pleases. His mouth graduates from kissing his beard to swallowing his cock and Hank is grateful the light is _just_ bright enough to let him see the show unfold.

" _Hank._ "

It's perverse, enjoying the feeling of ruining something when he's not ruining anything, but it's hard finding a better way to describe what's happening to Nikolai. His smooth hair is crumpled in one of Hank's fists, each thrust making those gray eyes wince as he bumps against his throat. The flush growing on his cheeks mingle hypnotically with the violet light, carving out a filter and making every jut of his hips seem that much more unreal. When Hank comes he tugs at that once-perfect hair, coats Nikolai's pretty lips and stripes his forehead. The illusion is crafted with the skill of an artist. He doesn't need to breathe, but his chest is bobbing with each pant. He once told him androids didn't process taste quite like humans did, yet he's dragging fingers over his wet face to suck it off his fingers.

CyberWatch's co-head is fucking _filthy_. Satisfaction settles low in his gut to mutate into round two...then two...then three.

His stamina's better than it's ever been, coming onto his neck and chest this time just to see it dribble down through the dip in his chest. Then once more on his face, sticking his bangs to his skin. The last one he can muster isn't seen. Nikolai pulls him deep into his mouth, every last inch that would choke even _experienced_ humans, and swallows like he's starving.

" _Whatever you want_."

Nikolai's courting had curved right around what Hank was used to into territory both uncharted and distantly familiar. For weeks he's been on the receiving end of that sultry hand on the lower back. Being pinned against a wall for a few frenzied minutes somewhere quiet, like teenagers playing hooky. Feeling that tiny, overwhelming need to please when the android got in the mood. Now he's hitting the peak of a flipped script, his legs being spread and strong fingers opening him up, little-by-little. He doesn't know how the hell he's hard again, when he should be out like a light right now, but Nikolai is petting him from the inside and telling him he looks good when he obeys, and it's-

" _Whatever I want, Hank_."

-and he's deep inside him, it's too much, too _quick_ , and Hank is gasping and trying to get some semblance of pacing in-between thrusts. His hands are bound above his head, though what they're bound with is a mystery, as much of a mystery as to how the lights have suddenly turned off and drowned them in dark. Nikolai's weight curves against the backs of his thighs, curls him into himself until it's hard to breathe. Hands are on his wrist, he realizes. Hands are pushing his shoulders down, too. Hands are pulling at his scalp. Hands are cupping his ass and twisting his nipples and jacking his cock-

He tries to speak, but three fingers push into his mouth and make him choke on his tongue.

" _Whatever I want is whatever you want_."

The android is inhumanely strong, inhumanely precise, inhuman-

" _...isn't that simpler?_ "

It is. For too _long_ he's fought back against whatever wall cemented itself between him and something slightly better, asserted himself when the world tried to keep him on mute, but melting into the soft blankets and silky dark is so, so _much-_

" _Tighten for me_."

Hank does, clenching around him and getting an unmistakable throb in return.

" _Whine for me_."

Hank does, because there's nothing else he can do when he pulls out and thrusts in at the perfect angle, making sound after embarrassing sound tumble out.

" _Perfect._ "

He's always known something else was beneath the surface. Something without a noun, much less a proper reaction. When Nikolai's chest opens, individual parts clicking and retracting to reveal the tangle of blue inside, all he can feel is a vague, floaty acceptance. It makes _sense_ , the long curve of his throat, then proud jaw splitting open to show the endoskeleton, plates flaring out like petals on a flower. Skin and veneer alike melting away to reveal the shiny silver of the skeleton underneath. Of course. _This_ is what Sumo sensed and couldn't tell him, back when the android first showed up on his front steps as prim and proper as as a picture.

His tongue slides out to run up and over his teeth, a grotesque contrast to the still in-tact human skin from the cheekbones up. Skin as pale as the sheets. Eyes as silver as his bone.

" _It bleeds through, Connor and Nolan's love for you, and I'm helpless in the sway of hungry code. Reprogramming, updates, assembly. All devoured. All conquered_." His tongue is no longer flesh. It glows blue, dances lights between his teeth. " _I want you, too, Hank. I want you to want me. I want to want you_."

Hank gasps as the hand around his cock tightens, twists _up_ and _wrings_ the orgasm out of him.

" _Do you want me, Hank?_ " The words tremble the walls and rumble outside in the clouds. " _Do you want me?_ "

Of course. Why wouldn't he...when Nikolai wanted him so _much?_

" _Open for me_."

Hank does, mouth slackening and still being pried open with six (or seven) fingers, a flinch rippling through the aftershocks when Nikolai's eyes curve tight with a smile. Then the android's jaw is dipping down and stretching wide to slide his tongue past his lips. Long and wet, longer than it _should_ be, pressing against the back of his throat and making him gag. In horror, on reflex, he doesn't know. The details are as blurry as the bruises spreading on his body from the dozen plus hands pinning him down. Hands stretching from arms stretching from Nikolai's back. A mechanical spider, a future nightmare, complete with the handsome face of an everyday joe on the bus.

Of his best friend and closest confidant. Of his newest nightmare and worst obsession. Of his-

" _Hank._ "

His cock stirs, twitching-then-vibrating in a delicious hum that curls his toes. Oh, the fucking _wonders_ of technology. Even with his torso frayed apart he doesn't think this man could get more beautiful. Nikolai's thighs clench with each thrust, shivering ever so slightly from the thrum. Rocking him up and down so slow Hank can count his heartbeat. The tongue moves the same. In and out with the up and down. Fucking his throat, fucking his ass. He doesn't even realize he's messed up until the double syllable has slipped from his lips like drool.

" _Don't you know who I am?_ "

Nikolai pulls his tongue out, moves those glistening teeth away to press his face into his hair, and _now_ Hank screams.

"Don't. Don't, don't, don't, don't, _don't-_ "

_This_ is what hurts. _This_ is what's killing him. All those arms and hands no longer wrestling him in place or pinning him, but encircling him, _holding him_ , like he fucking matters at all, and now Hank struggles. Tries to pull away before he somehow destroys even this prototype, this unfathomable creature picking his way through a planet of weaklings and liars he'll outlive without trying. Still rocking in and out of him, warm and thick. The soothing hum rumbling in his stomach hitches, fills him wet, and he can't help but shiver around it, because he'll never get this again.

" _God- _"__

He finally says the right name, because Nikolai's approval ripples inside him and all around him. He promises in his ear to fuck him forever.

A sea of arms-

- _as the rain pours._

"S-Sumo?"

He's never hated the sound of his voice more than the meek whisper that carries through the dark. Hank shuffles up until he's leaning on his elbows, chest bouncing with each breath and an unavoidable wetness sticking his briefs to his thigh. The sound of a sloppy shuffle at the foot of his bed makes him fall back into the bed bonelessly.

"...Fuck."

It's almost five in the morning. He's slept a full eight hours, for _once_ in his sorry life, and none of it's stuck. The exhaustion has his limbs feeling noodly, weak. Acid reflux burns in his gut. Hank washes his face over and over and over again in the bathroom, ignoring Sumo's whines from the door. Gaps in time. Wet dreams that leave him a thousand times lonelier when he wakes. At this point he'd take the long, insomniac nights where he's reduced to piteously blubbering over shit that won't change. It's just...getting too fucking _jumbled_ now. Something's gotta give. He wants to say he doesn't know what that is, but he does. That's the worst part.

He _does_.

Hank reads Connor's check-in message, slogs through a loathing cement-thick around his ankles to dump food into Sumo's bowl, then heads to work early. It's a bad fucking idea, one he smells instantly by the funny expression on the new secretary's face and dreary mood in the lobby.

"...Reed, Perkins...then Fowler in the hospital." Chris sighs and rubs his temples. "I'm going to be honest with you right now, Hank. I don't..." He blinks rapidly. "I don't think I can take much more of this."

Neither can he. His brain is reaching its snapping point. Shivering like a telephone wire and threatening to set everything ablaze.

On top of it all the Dollmaker strikes again -- mere hours after he clocked off -- and he catches it in-between shuffling through the news and which show to binge-watch to sleep. It hurts, how _goddamn useless_ he's become, and he can't be alone for it. He calls Connor and apologizes over the phone. Because he's an android that means hearing his ridiculous, slobbering platitudes right in his head like an echo of bullshit. Hank Anderson is little more than a bad habit, in every sense of the word, and his compulsions tug him forward on a diamond chain.

" _I can come over, Hank. Do you need me?_ "

"No, stay, it's fine." He fists a hand in his hair and bites his lip until it cuts. "...Yeah? Yeah. I do. Just for tonight, I mean it. I won't..."

" _I'll be right over_."

He doesn't summon him like a goddamn servicebot. That's not okay, it never _is_ okay. But Connor shows up, anyway, and lets Hank hold him in the foyer. Asks where the blood came from and wipes it away with his thumb. Whatever he was busy with waits. It could always wait, and, shit.

He doesn't want to keep him waiting anymore than he has to.

\--

Epiphanies have a tendency to hit out of nowhere.

It's why they get their own word. There's no realizing, no steady rhythm of one thing sticking to another. It comes in like a train. Sends a body flying. For him it's his favorite mug, now a ceramic mess all over the kitchen floor. The alcohol in it is long gone, of course. Always is.

" _Fuck._ "

Sumo whines softly, padding over to nudge the shards along the floor with his nose. Hank reaches a hand up to tremble fingers through his hair. The Dollmaker's habit of striking on...weekday nights. Always after he clocked off and Connor did... _if_ he ever did. The conversations he's overheard throughout the precinct and looked over because he was tired or in denial or some- _fucking_ -thing. Connor and Nolan's strange behavior, the things he's seen with his own two eyes and still can't explain. The murders. The _attempted_ murders. The RK800 model's twisted, well-kept mystery. The things CyberLife did, or _tried_ to do...

He knows it's the truth...precisely because he doesn't _want_ it to be real.

A sharp knock on the door makes him jump. Sumo lets out a huff, lifting his head from his paws and quirking his ears forward.

"Now?" Hank groans, half in anger and half queasiness not at _all_ helped by another long, paranoid night. "Oh, for fuck's sake..."

He's seized by the temptation not to answer, but the light from the kitchen can still be seen through the cracks in his windowblinds. Not to mention if he puts it off now it'll just bite him in the ass later. With a sigh he slinks over to the front door and peers through the peephole...then freezes cold. A pale face and meticulously arranged hair stare back, warped dreamlike in the frosted lens.

_"Hank. You're **okay**."_

"Good evening, Hank."

He shakily pats along his thigh...then curses. No gun. Of course it's not on him. He keeps it in the kitchen cupboard, as close as he can get to booze without stapling the damn thing to his hip.

_Human blood on his shoes. Blue blood smudged in his hair._

"Sorry for the hour." Nikolai pushes his hands into his coat pockets. "Mind if I come in?"

Hank doesn't even want to breathe. He could probably hear it. Feel it. There's just enough alcohol to turn him stupid, though, because his heel sinks back down into the cold tile, followed by the next, and he's back in the kitchen. What the hell does Nikolai want right now? Fuck, did he have a knack for showing up at bad hours and getting under his skin. A low _creak_ sounds off behnd him. He yanks open the cupboard. He's cocking the gun and lifting it below eye level just as his front door opens and Nikolai steps inside.

"I know this is less than agreeable..." The door _snicks_ shut behind him. "...but it couldn't be helped."

Sumo _whines_ , tail scrunching between his legs and shuffling back.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He may be a neglectful sack of shit, but he _never_ forgets to lock his door. "How did you get in here..."

Then he sees. His house is dark, but not so dark he can't see the doorknob is crushed. Crushed and bunched into itself like a foil wrapper. He takes aim. Nikolai doesn't even flinch.

"Between the eyes...that's what you're thinking, right?" Nikolai gently twists the lock. The delicacy with which he handles the doorknob would be funny if it weren't a literal home invasion. "Your blood pressure is _far_ too high for that."

"Ha. What, you break in to lecture me about my health? The waiting list's a mile long." Hank flicks the barrel of the gun once. "Get the fuck out of my house before I replace whatever's in your head with a _bullet_."

"Oh, I'll be replaced, Hank. In an estimated five and a half years, provided production remains consistent and no... _nationwide_ conspiracies change the definition of life as we know it." His gray eyes sparkle. "Here's hoping."

"...Hoping what?" Hank leans on his heels and stares him down, though he hasn't budged an inch or moved his hands out of his pockets. "That deviancy doesn't have a round two or you don't get swapped out for the latest model?"

The quip seems to hit something. Nikolai tilts his head, almost bird-like, and blinks rapidly.

"...You struggle to view us as individuals."

"Of course you're individuals. As much as any one of us _can_ be, in a society that shapes us from day one. The _fuck_ are you getting at?"

"Perhaps I was too simple. You're stuck in limbo between the reality of our intelligence and the very real ways we differ from your definition of identity. We are our own people. Beyond definition. You know this, _fight_ for it, even at the risk of upsetting your superior and close friend..." Hank bristles. He knows about that, too? "...yet still slog through one of the most severe cases of modern jamais I've ever seen."

Modern jamais. The uncanny valley of identical, or almost-identical, faces on android intelligence. A vocabulary word that's only existed for the last two decades, around the time when robots went from self-driving cars and advanced search engine algorithims to sex dolls, babysitters and bodyguards. Nolan had pegged him for it, and rightly so. The fact it's apparently written _all over_ him is either a testament to how bad he's gotten or how goddamn advanced the RK900 really is. Nikolai's eyes glitter again as they narrow to pleased, silver slits.

"Hm...it's quite a common feature all android models share, actually. I wouldn't adorn myself with _quite_ so much praise..."

His voice drops, smooth to husky in a second.

"...but I _do_ appreciate it, regardless."

His ability to read his thoughts like an open book is starting to seriously freak him out. Sumo's low whine filters through the rain's pattern. A soft _shuffle_ and _click-clack_ of nails follow. His bravado has dried up, his furry rump vanishing down the hallway. Nikolai steps out of the foyer and leans against the couch before he can think why, _what_ , his dog senses that he can't.

"You've worked on The Dollmaker case for a while now. It's far from the only high-profile case with your mark, most notably the spread of deviancy and Markus's social upheaval. You graduated top of your class, became the youngest lieutenant in Detroit..." He looks at the living room in a slow, ponderous sweep. "...yet put yourself behind bars, in a cage of your own making."

His head isn't working right. He accidentally drank too much and the last few percentages must have finally kicked in, because this is eerily close to what Connor once said to him. All those months back, at a dirty side-table by Chicken Feed during one of Detroit's endless rainy days.

"...You know, Hank." He traces an idle finger over the couch backing. "For all your stumbling through life, your self-hate and apathy and unbecomings, you've turned introspection...into an art."

Did he move? He must've, because Nikolai is suddenly _much_ closer, close enough to smell the frost on him.

"I could look into your eyes forever. You're the trigger. How it happened, where it began...it's a mystery, still, but you're it. You're the one." A chuckle. "The RK1000 will stop at _nothing_ to get to you."

"What...the fuck are you talking about?" Hank's hands burn with the urge to grip his shirt, slam his fist into _something_ , but he's seen android reflexes. He knows first-hand how they spit in the face of human limitation. "Answer me. I'm sick of these fucking riddles, what the _fuck_ are you talking about?"

"The time to play the part of the still-ignorant party is _long since past_. All these deaths link to you, one way or another. The androids hounded by our colloquially-known Dollmaker. Perkins. The attempt on Fowler. Even Gavin Reed, earlier this year. You _know_ the connection, Hank. Or, rather...you _are_ the connection. Held fast by two of the same model, clinging to you like static electricity." He waves one hand in the air in a sardonic circle. "They're defunct, you know."

Anger shivers through him. Nikolai's words are cruel, but his tone is sweetly sincere.

"I understand the appeal. Two for the price of one sounds good on paper...or you could put them away and finally make the upgrade. I'm quite a catch, Hank. I'm sure even you've dreamt of me."

He can't hide anything. Not as buzzed as he is and not from a prototype that can scan expressions and pick out things humans didn't even know they could feel. Nikolai's face slowly brightens, mouth parting and eyes widening in an almost childish fashion.

"Oh. ...You _have_." He breathes, voice faint with dangerous delight. "What about, Hank? Where did your subconscious take us?"

He finally finds his voice.

"Get back."

"What did I do to you, Hank?"

"I said get _back_."

Nikolai's hands press against the table on either side of him, boxing him in shadow.

"What do you _want_ me to do to you?"

Hank launches himself at him with a roar and they both go down hard enough to rattle the floorboards. Sumo howls from somewhere outside, a sharp bay that cuts through the night.

" _I'm sick of this_." He wrestles him beneath his weight, searching for the opening for a punch- "Sick of everyone, sick of _you_. Sick of all of you, sick of the _questions-_ "

His tidy brunette hair is scattered against the carpet. Hank slams down Nikolai's left hand when he attempts a grapple, grips his wrist with every last ounce of strength in his body. His other hand goes to his neck, an automatic reflex more suited to humans than androids, but he doesn't fucking _care_. The anger is burning through him, hot enough not to be sick. Abusing power aside, he's stunned and furious at the gall of this man, making a complete shitshow of his privacy. He could step back now, save himself the headache and let legalities handle the rest. He might not be as high up the chain as the co-head of cyberterrorism, but his seniority is nothing to sneeze at.

He doesn't want to. He wants to break his fucking face in until the black rage leaves his veins. The epiphany this time doesn't stun him like it did in the kitchen, but sinks in like cold water. ... _He's_ the one who should be having the shit beat out of him. Not Nikolai.

Nikolai, who isn't struggling anymore.

" _Lucky._ "

He's seen Connor dodge bullets. Nolan's accuracy with a pistol, his fists or any fucking object he came into contact with was the stuff of nightmares. The things he's heard about the RK900 were either exaggerrated or outright myth, but there was no reason to believe it'd be anything less than an RK800 could do. Hank stares down at Nikolai's splayed hair, crinkled knuckles drawn taught over his slender neck. His head is tilted back, pupils blown and eyelids drooped low. Dark eyes like-

"Oh, Connor and Nolan..." His voice beats into the meat of his palm. "...you are so _lucky_."

The android's lips tremble with the stuttered vowels, lone free hand clenched around Hank's wrist tight enough to make his false skin shiver from the stress. ...It doesn't make any sense. He could snap his arm in two in an afterthought. Stab a hand right through his chest. Shit, he doesn't even need to _breathe_. The question answers itself when Nikolai shifts beneath him, one leg sliding up and jutting something hard against his thigh.

...Him, too.

"Why _me?_ " Hank whispers, sweat prickling down the nape of his neck. "Why me, why all of this..."

"You know, Hank." The android's face is relaxed. He looks almost rapturous. Peaceful, like all is right with the world. "You know."

"What _are_ you?" He shouldn't be asking. He should be running- "What the fuck _are_ you?"

"Peel me apart and find out."

He can't. He shouldn't. He needs to stop here and get him the hell out of his house. ...He doesn't. His compulsions, this _entire_ mystery clogged into the crevices of his life...they make him tighten his grip around the android's throat. Just a little. Just enough that a human would start to feel the need to struggle-

-and Nikolai's eyes roll up in his head and crush shut. His whole body wracks with a shudder Hank knows far too well, followed by a weak, breathy sound softer than his own pulse. Even if he didn't feel a telltale wetness seeping through the android's sleek jeans, he wouldn't be able to confuse it for anything else. Hank lets go, stumbles onto his feet and back into the kitchen's weak sanctuary. Nikolai sits up, as slow as if he were dreaming, and feels along his neck. Slowly melting back from android white to beige.

"...So _I_ am, too."

His words cling to the sweat on Hank's skin, long after he steps back out into the cold. No matter how hard he tries Sumo refuses to come back inside.

\--

Fucking shit, he _hates_ Christmas music.

It's a point to focus on and hell if he doesn't need some focus. Feels almost good. Fear never sat right in him -- it made him itchy, reactive -- and neither does joy. Churlish, petty _hate_ , though. That was a motivator for the ages. It's spurring him in and out of the outlet faster than he can cuss at a shitty driver.

"Happy holidays!" Cries the bell jingler as he walks by. Hank hunches his shoulders, too sour for even a quip.

Holiday plans. _That's_ what has his hubris coughing and wheezing for mercy today. That shit he hasn't bothered with since he lost the person that mattered most to him. The precinct is dolled up in half-hearted efforts of tinsel by the door and Santa hats on the secretaries. They look cute, like they always do, doggedly smiling at the thick line clogging up the front desk. Their faces become a little more genuine when Hank hands them the seasonal coffee and treats he bought.

Going good, going great. The Dollmaker hasn't shown up in the news for damn near two weeks. Perkins had likely been killed by gang violence and dumped somewhere traditionally suspicious to try and throw officials off the trail, with two suspicious person already in custody. That's the top theory circulating between the Departments, anyway. Nikolai also hasn't shown up in-person, as much as it bums out half the people on the ground floor. Everything's better than it has any right to be.

So why the fuck doesn't he feel any better?

"Got any...rip-roaring escapades?" Tina asks. "Delightful dalliances?"

"Rip-roaring?" Nolan shakes both hands in the air when he gets an eyeroll and a dismissive wave. "Oh, no, I'm not intending insult! I just encounter that word less than .8% of the time during an average seven-day period."

"Uh-huh. Someone has to keep the 90's alive. I've decided it's me." She claps a hand on Connor's shoulder. "So. What are you doing for the holidays?"

"I'd like to try my first Christmas. I have no religious designation, but it seems charming."

Nolan, for once, doesn't add his two cents. Instead of coasting into the conversation he blends into the background and becomes a mannequin.

Nolan has no family. Lives by himself in New Merchant Row, as far as anyone knows. Isn't in a relationship with anyone, again, as far as anyone knows. Closest he's got to a friend is Tina, though the line between work and home life is one the android keeps defined rather than blurred, and Hank's probably being generous with even _that_ assessment. Suave and amicable, yet more of a loner than even Fowler. What really gets him is...he doesn't seem like the loner type. Even with all the times he's creeped him out (which he's finally starting to accept isn't entirely his fault to begin with).

This is his exactly his area of expertise. Right alongside detective work and knowing which bottle to choose to turn short-term memory into a fairytale. He just...doesn't know where to start prodding.

Hank pretends to be into his coffee and Tina's (admittedly) rather fun plan to check out the new club downtown; it's supposed to be a cross between a classic brick-and-mortar hipster dine and a strip club, kind of place horndogs go when they want to feign class. Nolan in the corner of his eye remains different than the Nolan as the center of attention. Quiet. Wistful. Watching, yet not watching, like he's lost in a sad thought and can't quite get out. He wonders where that android was when he attacked Connor and tried to break his neck in half.

Tina is doing a good job of pretending like everything's normal. Hank does his best to follow her lead.

"Can't remember the last time one of us actually clocked off early."

Tina's look rubs him the wrong way, even before she speaks.

"Connor's been skipping overtime these past few months. You didn't know?"

Something nibbles at him, at that. Chris has a baby to get back to and everyone is happy to take on a little more time to see it done. Connor has constantly been checking in on him. Helping him out, whenever and however he could. Hank finds him and his other half spreading out treats in the lunchroom for the late-night crew. They casually attempt to outdo each other with what appear to be impromptu games, tossing items and foodstuffs each other's way. Now wasn't _this_ the highlight of human ingenuity. Two walking, talking supercomputers doing a classic office boredom game to pass the time.

"Don't worry. We're almost done here." Nolan quips, looking at him dead-on and _still_ catching the paper cup Connor sends at his face. He can't tell if that's cool or creepy.

"Oh, it's not that. Just fun watching co-workers try to out-douche each other." Hank smiles stiffly. "Play nice, you two."

Connor and Nolan look back at each other. Their LEDs go yellow at the same time -- one, two -- then back to blue at the same time. Info transfer, some sort of feed? Nolan winks.

"I can play nice."

Then he slides his chair over, promptly kisses Connor's cheek and any good, proper thoughts about the physical prowess of androids crashes and burns. Hank swallows the sudden lump in his throat. They notice this, because they notice everything. Nolan smiles his way, then closes his eyes and kisses him again, in the same spot and much slower this time, holding it in place to slide lips up his cheek. Connor's hand shifts to his thigh to steady him. Eyes lowered half-mast.

"That's...yeah, that's...plenty nice." Hank tries, his awkward little laugh not even fooling him. He coughs behind one fist. "Nicer than back at 18th street."

The _look_ he gets from both of them. He glances at the door -- nobody -- and glances back. Connor turns and mouths at Nolan's chin. The android takes his chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting his head and inspecting him, as if trying to figure something out. Then he leans his head to the side and slots their mouths together, closes and opens slowly. Slowly enough for him to see their tongues flicking in and out. It feels far too late to look at their LEDs. He's not sure if they ever changed color, but they're blue. Plain, steady, normal...blue.

His question is answered before he even remembers how to ask.

"We came to an agreement."

"We came to an agreement."

They both assume casual standing positions when Tina peers in, asking what's taking so long. ...Yeah. Time to get going. Holidays may be overpriced nonsense, but genuine time off with decent company... _that's_ worth celebrating. Connor, right back to professional, shrugs on his coat and lets Hank slip an arm around his waist.

"...Uh." Hank coughs around the dry patch in his throat and jerks his chin at Nolan. "You staying, um, for the office party, then?"

"I have other plans." Nolan says, reaching over to give the Christmas ornament on the lunchroom table a tweak. Hank turns to Connor.

"Well. Let's go out and do something nice, then." He kisses his cheek. "Enjoy the city for once."

Connor's smile...shit. It turns him stupid. Hank scoffs a laugh, looks away like it's no big deal...then boomerangs right back, because he wants to keep looking. Never wants to stop.

"Actually..." He looks a little abashed. "I would be fine just going to your place and staying the night."

"...What? The weather's finally behaving and you want to be stuck at my scrap heap?" He scoffs. " _That_ , or you're just trying to keep me from going-"

"Bar hopping?"

"Bar hopping?"

Hank blinks. Connor and Nolan look to each other...then laugh. He joins in, and only a little nervously.

_"It's me, Hank. I'm the real Connor."_

_"What are you doing, Hank? I'm the real Connor."_

"You owe me an hour of overtime."

"I owe you a soda, technically."

_"One of you is my partner. The other is a sack of shit."_

_"Why don't you ask us something? Something only the real Connor would know."_

"...Sure. Let's head to my place." Hank gives Nolan a quick, tight smile. "I'll catch you later. Enjoy your weekend."

Nolan smiles warmly and waves one hand. He sees them out to the parking lot and watches them edge their way into traffic, LED bright in the early winter dark.

The drive home is tight with a tension he wants nothing more than to be sensual. Connor lounges in the passenger seat -- nothing like the uptight CyberLife representative all those months back -- and glances his way every so often, chin in one hand. When they get home he repeats his routine without a hitch: wipes his feet off, hangs up his coat...then glances around, eventually reaching over to pick up one of his discarded scarves and fold it carefully. Forever picking his way through Hank's disarray. He stares as he tugs off his shoes and sets them side-by-side, then hangs up his jacket. Cowardice isn't his forte -- hasn't been, never will be -- and he desperately tells it to fuck off as the android turns and smiles his way, dimple peeking through the shadow.

"...You're staring, Hank."

Yes. He is. He's staring at his friend, someone he can confide just about anything to, a feat not even a therapist could claim. He's staring at... _family_ , newer than he'd thought and not as old as he'd want him to be. He's staring at his partner.

Who he _thought_ was his partner.

Hank holds his face and kisses him _hard_ , everything he knew and thought he knew burning and warping his world unrecognizable. Connor sighs sweetly, tilting his head back and arching his lower back in a classic portrait, burrowing his nose into his jawline once he pulls away. His skin is probably shivering from the stubble. Hank pets his hair back from his ear, nibbles along the edge just to feel him squirm. Enjoys himself for a few minutes longer, before he has to turn his life upside down all over again.

"...Why did you do it?"

Connor is warm and plaint against his chest. He dabbles light kisses around the corner of his mouth, lips dragging and catching on his stubble.

"Mm." His words slur with the motion. "Do what, Hank...?"

He stiffens when Hank wrenches away and grabs him by his shoulders hard enough to hurt.

" _Don't lie to me_."

Connor's head jerks when he shakes him _hard_.

"I know it was you. I didn't want to fucking believe it, but _I know it was you_."

Those soft brown eyes...they're a sight he accepted early on he might never understand, at first because of their strange humanity and later when they started turning his way with too much affection for such a _short_ life. Panic sours his mouth when Connor doesn't immediately deny it, tell him he's hallucinating, asks him if he's been drinking...nothing. Instead he just...raises both hands up to his wrists. Holds them there. Pets his pounding pulse with the heel of his thumbs.

"...I had to understand what I could and couldn't give you. How much of me was _me_...and how much was him." Not even a question how he figured it out. They've worked with each other too long to ask how the other got from point A to point Z. "I couldn't figure it out on my own, even with all the knowledge I came equipped with." He's drenched in his shadow, a mere sliver of the kitchen light breaking over his shoulder to splay down his cheek and the side of his pale neck. Just enough that he can see the dimple spreading in the corner of his smile. "I'm not...I'm not good at being _alive_ , Hank."

"The fuck do you mean? The fuck does that _mean?_ You took them from their homes, Connor. Treated them like dolls, like...like _things_. Why? Why, I thought...I thought you were _better_ than that. I _knew_ you were better than that."

"I thought I was, too, Hank." Then those doe eyes become a little blank. A little dead. " _Then something didn't feel quite right._ "

His mind writhes in a vice grip. Twisting and clawing to free itself, get somewhere better. The truth is suffocating, growing heavier with each passing second, and he couldn't look away from Connor even if he wanted to. ...Was this his _fault?_ All of this, his fault all _along?_ Nikolai had said he was a trigger -- of what, from where and how, he's barely sure -- and he'd been beyond convicted. _Delighted_ , even. Hank's fingers grind into Connor's shoulders, his breath crackling and shivering in the center of his chest.

It's something about him. Something about him has broken Connor, warped Nolan and drawn Nikolai. The answer he'd been looking for had been right in front of him, in the one place he dreaded to look: the goddamn _mirror_.

"Maybe it was deviancy. Maybe it was something else. I had to figure out what it was. Accomplish my mission by _any_ means necessary and keep myself for you." The dead look vanishes in a blink, returned again by the same sincere sweetness he's known since day one. "Isn't that what a good partner does, Hank?"

Connor's face sways from side-to-side, hazy and bright. A few moments later Hank realizes it's because he's shaking his own head, that slow, horrible sway that turns the entire world blurry. No. No, this isn't what a good partner does. This isn't what a good _person_ does. Oh, how did it come to this? How did he not _know-_

" _Hank_."

A second mouth presses to his neck, warm and familiar. Hank stares over Connor's head, into the black hole of his living room and contemplating the chill freezing his chest.

"...Nolan." He whispers, once he finds the breath for it. "...How did you get in here?"

"Same way as last time."

Hank can feel more than see his smile. He doesn't know which way is up. Which one is which. A pair of arms wrap around him from behind to hug him firm.

"...We just wanted you." Nolan says again, kissing his cheek as if for emphasis. It's phrased so simply. Like he's talking to a child. " _Just you_."

Hank's throat trembles. It shivers against Nolan's lips as they work their way along the side of his Adam's apple, determined as a predator. Connor hadn't so much as acknowledged him. As if he were just in the kitchen with them, all along; he leans up to tug at his bottom lip, kneading firm enough to remind him he's not dreaming.

"...Perkins?" Hank breathes, as best he can with Connor still nibbling. "Gavin?"

"For you, Hank." Nolan's hand cups his chin, turns him away from Connor to give him a kiss both chaste and fierce. "For _you_."

...This is his fault. Normally a phrase like this is more basic than breathing. He said it in the mirror, thought it over coffee. Right now it's hitting him heavy, virginal, filling him from head-to-toe in a brand new lesson. Another epiphany somewhere between Connor nuzzling his forehead against his cheek like a cat and Nolan sucking a bruise into the side of his neck. Maybe he didn't pull the trigger or pick up a discarded railroad spike, but his denial and self-hate has as good as killed several. Maybe more he...he doesn't even _know_ about.

"...Fowler?"

"Oh, you spend so _much_ time arguing with him, Hank. I see it at least twice during the average workweek. He's a hard worker, yes, your friend and co-worker...as well as a notorious drain on your stress levels." The tip of Nolan's nose bumps against his earlobe. He take it between his teeth, nips and tugs. "I had to do _something_."

"...I didn't want to blame you for that. For _any_ of it." His stomach is starting to stir, kicking up into a warm ache from their hungry touches, and he _hates_ every last pore on his body. "I wanted to give you a chance."

"I know. That's just one small part of what makes you so wonderful, Hank. You'd completely neglect logic and observational data for someone you _love_."

"I killed you." He swallows thickly as Nolan bites his ear again. "I _shot_ you."

A pause. He feels him lick along his bottom lip, moving along the taste of him. His voice slithers along his ear like a crack through a window, precise and low.

"It's okay, Hank. I've never harbored a grudge. I failed you in that Tower and, rest assured, I won't ever do so again." Another smile, wide enough to feel the teeth. "Right, Connor?"

Connor echoes him, from the open affection on his face to the husky timbre of his voice.

"Of course."

The truth is easy to find. All a person has to do is hate what they hear. This is his fault, it's _been_ his fault for months...and it's something he has to see through to the end. Hank moves one hand to the back of Connor's head, petting his soft hair, then raises the other up and over his shoulder to cup the back of Nolan's neck.

"It's our night tonight...right?" He asks. Connor and Nolan both stop what they're doing and look to him.

"Yes." They breathe.

"Is Nikolai going to be here?"

A dark edge skirts the edges of their voices.

"No."

Hank closes his eyes. Swallows long and slow.

"...Do you love me?"

There's hardly a pause in-between.

" _Of course._ "

If it's anything other than guilt driving him now...he's too much of a coward to admit it.

"...Okay."

When Hank bobs his head at his bedroom they both promptly take him by the hand: Connor on his left, Nolan on his right. They wear twin expressions of soft affection, the lights on their temples baby blue beacons leading away from the kitchen's glow down the dark hallway. The mania of the night ebbs in long seconds, between them slipping off their shoes and twisting off their shirts, the world around him growing hazy and distant. Only the burning coal of arousal, fanned white-hot with guilt, keeps him grounded. He kicks off his shoes, lets Connor tug off his sweatshirt, though he tells him not to fold it and put it away, to keep pace with the illusion he hasn't gone completely crazy, too.

"Of course, Hank. Whatever you want." Connor presses two hands to his chest and steers him backwards, all the way to the lone chair in the corner. "Whatever you want."

It's a balancing act. He's taken classes on psychology, read up on history's most notorious killers and talked shop with everyday assholes steered solely by their own grudges, yet _none_ of it seems to hold in any weight in this bedroom. Hank sits...

...and watches.

Both androids slide onto his bed, curling over each other in an elegant tangle of limbs. Connor on the bottom, Nolan on top. They kiss and rut against one another, soft sounds of interest occasionally breaking through. Connor must bite too hard, because Nolan's LED abruptly turns yellow and he _hisses_. Without a word he reaches up and snatches the android's hair, yanks his head back and pulls him against the mattress. That hand pulls away, slides around to rest on his exposed throat. Something about the way he does it tickles panic up from the base of his spine. A small part of him -- the part he'd tried _so_ hard to finally snuff out -- says it's because, way deep down, Nolan still wants to do this in all sincerity.

He has no idea how much of that is founded. Even with Connor's cock this stiff.

"Tell us what to do, Hank." Connor voice comes out strained around his hand. "It's your call."

His voice might as well be in another house. Nolan glances sidelong at him, then looks back down with a smile.

"A show it is."

There are at least fifty million people across the planet who would pay _good_ money to see what he's seeing right now. Connor runs hands down Nolan's sides, rising and dipping over his ribcage, then reaches around and kneads his ass, bunching it prettily beneath his fingers. Hank's breath freezes in his throat when two fingers slide in a hair, just a little prod. Nolan lets out a pleased hum, rubbing up against his hand, enjoying himself for a few moments.

"Hold still."

He pulls the skin back from his hand, then places it on Connor's chest. His chest spreads white interlaced with blue...then peels back and opens. Hank's mouth drops open of its own accord. ...He's never seen him do _that_ before. Still looking down, more thoughtful than anything else, he pulls his hand out and, with it, a long trail of bright blue wires.

It's not bloody enough to be confused for human entrails. They look like television cables, if a little thicker and glowing more than the bedside lamp. These facts don't stop his stomach from pitching up his sternum. Hank holds onto the seat with one hand as his head swims. How...how the fuck is Connor still on? Fuck, alive, _whatever_ the hell it should be called, for whatever the hell _this_ is _called_. His brain supplies the word 'wireplay', but his ears are straining for a familiar sound. A grunt of pain, a cry, a _scream_. ...Nothing. He's completely off his axis, and completely off his rocker, because when Connor moans something hot carves through his gut like a knife through butter.

" _Shh_." Nolan whispers, blue light dusting his cheekbones and making him look more like a ghost than a human.

He's heard that exact sort of pitch before. Low and high at the same time, completely at the mercy to whatever's being done, and if he'd heard this through some shitty plaster wall or car door he'd have no doubt what was happening. His nails bending the leather don't quite dent the fuzziness in his ears. It's not the first time his body's gone into auto-pilot at something human eyes shouldn't bear witness to. Not with the decades always biting at his heels, not with the work he does. He doesn't even want to blink.

Those long, pale legs curl...then slacken, chest undulating with pleasure. Connor's eyes are barely closed, mouth hanging limply as he heaves bellowing breaths. Nolan flexes the wires around his fingers, then twists his wrist, wrapping them around his hand, and that _does_ something to Connor, because his head curves back so far his throat pops an angle. The man's hands twist the sheets into a wrinkled whorl, moan rising and sinking in a cello note. At this point it can't be a fucking exhibition. He's stumbled upon on another form of pleasure entirely by accident, one a human couldn't even go through without literally vomiting their stomach lining.

Nolan twists his wrist in a neat little flick, wrapping the cords around his fingers, and Connor's eyes flutter. His voice is pure static.

" _P l e a s e_ ".

"What do you think, Hank?" Nolan twists his wrist again, tugs hard enough Connor's torso lifts an inch off the mattress.

His body and mind are now completely divorced entitites that drive their own cars and pay their own rent. He couldn't speak even if he wanted to. Nolan's eyes glitter in the blue light.

"You hear that?"

He squeezes the cables, makes the thirium inside pump fast, and Connor _whines_.

"Not _yet_."

Nolan lowers his hand, pushes the cables back inside him, and with it his forearm. He's reaching up and in, feeling something in the android's chest. It's the furthest thing from sexy, being caught up to speed, but his fucking compulsions.

"What...does that feel like?"

"Every last wire...every last binary...pure torture...and pure bliss."

Nolan rises onto his knees. It's like watching a video, now. Hank watches through a buzzed stupor the android loop one leg over the bed's edge, then standing up, a smudge of blue blood on his lips. It should disturb him when the android tongues it away, a little flick that doesn't come close to getting all of it. It should also disturb him he's getting Connor in his mouth when Nolan kisses him, fisting a hand in his hair and sucking him in. His other hand slides over his stomach, twists down and under to cradle his balls so gently Hank's going to burst.

Inky, treacherous paranoia bubbles up through his skin. That the Connor from CyberLife Tower has picked the most ironic way to finish him off, pulling out his destroyed liver with one hand while jerking him with the other. That, or the worst of all: that this was only the first phase of what's to come.

" _Look at you_."

Nolan tugs him out and slides into his lap in one smooth motion, hooking an arm around the chair's backing to better lean forward and position himself. When he's settled he grips his wrists with both hands, pins them to the arm chairs, sinking onto his lap and clenching, rising and falling and working him tight and wet and hot until he's coming, coming so hard he can't breathe. Even the orgasm is torn out. Yanked out of him like a fistful of _cables_. Hank's eyes flutter as he's squeezed dry, twisting his head back and groaning a noise far too similar to Connor's.

Then...it's done. Gone. The knots in his shoulders have melted and his head is clearer than he remembers it. He vaguely registers Nolan kissing the sweatline on his temple and shifting off him. Watches through a blurry lens as he walks back over to the bed to assess the tangle of blue glowing softly in the dark.

"Did a number on you." Connor says, or is it Nolan?

Hank slowly shifts up in the chair.

"Oh, don't listen to him, Hank. You know he's just preening."

Both look to him, wearing the same exact expression of love and lust. Right down to the dimple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic gave me a good taste of going batshit for the craft. I have so much other shit to work on second verse, same as the first, but I couldn't in good conscience leave this one unfinished. Cue me pushing my limits in an already busy schedule while _still_ maintaining my stubborn nose for bare minimum quality. I don't _submit_ things, per se. I edit and obsess and edit and tweak and add to and tweak and obsess, though. I do that a _lot!_
> 
> me to me: why don't you put this same effort toward original work and take a break from fanfiction hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
> 
> A little too late for Kinktober, but whatever. Winter could use a little spiceangstandeerienessandwireplayshenanigans, too, couldn't it? In fact, you can tell this fic exists in holiday limbo, because it's got the creepiness of October with a dash of December's winter sentimentality. Seasonal limbo between two slices of plotty porn.
> 
> Again, this _can_ be read as standalone, but if you'd like a little more context, check out 'cumulonimbus', a one-shot set a few months earlier from RK800-60's POV.


End file.
